The Kelowna Rockets need to get out of their own heads. This team has gone far too long with a sub-mediocre powerplay that they are now making rookie-esque mistakes, such as making one too many passes, or not shooting when a lane opens, and closing those shooting lanes themselves by passing into ones that are clogged, and then being pressured to making a bad decision because you no longer have a passing or shooting lane.
Ryan Huska's powerplay is based on a system that puts no body in front of the goaltender, instead, moves that body to between the faceoff circles, is a smaller player, and is fed the puck from the corners and with his small size, can attempt to make something happen from there. This system has never really worked, Huska needs to take the powerplay and try something completely different. The past 5 years, the Rockets Powerplay has been ranked,
2013/14 - 10th (Current)
2012/13 - 4th
2011/12 - 10th
2010/11 - 11th
2009/10 - 8th
That is not a good powerplay average on a 5 year trend, and it's gotten to a point where I feel teams are coming into Prospera Place and know they can take liberties on this team, and get away with it. That can and will spell disaster for this team in the long run. If you're not making teams pay for taking liberties on your top players, then eventually a top 6 forward, or top 4 D-Man is going to get injured.
If the Rockets plan on going any further than the Western Conference QUARTER Finals this spring, they better figure their powerplay out, or they will find themselves scratching their collective heads on the golf course in late march wondering what in the hell just happened.
Just ask the Seattle Thunderbirds who went 0 for 27 in last years First round playoff match vs the Kelowna Rockets
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