Blazers fall back to earth

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The learning continued for the Kamloops Blazers on Saturday as they absorbed their first loss in four WHL games.
As the Blazers were losing 5-0 to the Rockets in Kelowna on Saturday night, a couple of 20-year-old veterans — defenceman Giffen Nyren and centre C.J. Stretch — found themselves parked on the bench.
“Those are the guys who I just didn’t think got it done,” Kamloops head coach Barry Smith explained Sunday. “”Some (other) guys got limited ice time because they weren’t very good, but everybody wasn’t very good.”
Benching players in such a fashion hasn’t been a regular occurrence in these parts of late, but Smith feels his roster now has the depth to afford him that option.
“It does without a doubt,” Smith stated. “And I have to set that standard early, whether you’re C.J. Stretch or (sophomore forward) Brett Lyon or (freshman forward) JC Lipon. If you don’t play well, you’re not going to play.”
And, as Smith pointed out, the plot will thicken more a month from now. Two of the team’s top forwards — Dalibor Bortnak and Colin Smith — are out with injuries and due back in mid- to late-October.
“I told the guys that today,” Smith said. “We’re going to have eight defencemen and 15 forwards. You will sit in games if you’re not doing the right things.”
The Blazers didn’t do many right things on Saturday as their record slipped to 3-1-0-0.
“Kelowna had its back against the wall,” Smith said, referring to the fact the defending WHL champions went into the game at 0-2-1-0. “I knew their effort was going to be there, that they were going to come out hard.”
The Blazers had beaten the Rockets 4-1 in Kamloops on Friday and, as Smith said, he “thought we would have a bit of an emotional hangover but we would figure it out. And we didn’t.
“We just didn’t go in and compete hard enough and we didn’t work hard enough.”
The Rockets got 23 saves from goaltender Adam Brown, as the sophomore earned his third career shutout, this one before 6,102 fans at Prospera Place.
Forward Stepan Novotny, who hadn’t scored since notching four in a 6-5 overtime loss to the visiting Vancouver Giants on opening night, had two power-play goals for the Rockets.
Kamloops goaltender Jon Groenheyde, making his third straight start, stopped 43 shots. But the Rockets, no doubt having noticed a couple of emotional outbursts Friday, crowded him and he took a slashing penalty at 11:24 of the second period. Novotny scored his first goal a minute later to give the home side a 3-0 lead.
“Jon gets too emotional,” Smith said of the18-year-old sophomore. “He started out well. He was great early and he kept us in it. But that’s a dumb penalty.
“That doesn’t change the fact that I love his competitivenes and I love his compete, but . . . he has to control that.”
With all teams having video access to every game now, you can bet that Groenheyde is going to find that his crease is a high-traffic area.
“Exactly,” Smith said. “For the first couple of games he didn’t let that bother him but that’s easy to do when you’re playing well and you’re winning. You have to be able to do that when you’re losing.”
Newcomers Brett Bulmer and Cody Chikie scored their first WHL goals for Kelowna, while Lucas Bloodoff had the other goal.
The Blazers, who are at home to the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Wednesday, had allowed six goals in winning their first three games.
The Blazers were back on the ice yesterday to begin preparations for Lethbridge (0-4-0-0), which plays the Giants in Vancouver on Tuesday.
“It is part of the learning process,” Smith said. “We did real well the first three games because we did the right things. . . . not as consistent as I wanted to, but we did them. (Saturday) night, it just wasn’t good enough . . . our level of compete and our willingness to do the right things weren’t there.”
JUST NOTES: The Blazers scratched Bortnak (spleen), Smith (broken arm), D Josh Caron, D Tyler Hansen and F Ryan Hanes. . . . The Rockets were without D Mitchell Chapman (shoulder), F Max Adolph (ankle) and D Tyson Barrie, all of whom were injured in the first period of Friday’s game. . . . Barrie, who is believed to have knee and shoulder issues, is scheduled for an MRI today. . . . The Blazers were shut out three times last season, including a 5-0 blanking by the visiting Rockets on Nov. 15. Kelowna G Kris Lazaruk stopped 16 shots that night, while Groenheyde turned aside 34. . . . Former Blazers F Matt Kassian was assigned by the Minnesota Wild to the AHL’s Houston Aeros on Saturday, while the AHL’s Texas Stars released Jarret Lukin, another former Blazers forward. . . . F Troy Ofukany of Kamloops also was released by Texas on Saturday.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com