Special teams lead Rockets

Photo: Wayne Moore - Castanet File Photo

Leon Draisaitl scored a key shorthanded goal Tuesday leading the Rockets past Victoria 4-2.

The Kelowna Rockets scored twice with the man advantage and once shorthanded in a 4-2 victory over the Victoria Royals Tuesday in the provincial capital.

Trailing 1-0 and forced to kill a penalty for the second time early in the first Leon Draisaitl finally got the Rockets rolling.

Draisaitl stole the puck from Tyler Soy in the defensive zone and raced up the ice with Nick Merkley on a two-on-one break. Using Merkley as a decoy Draisaitl held onto the puck and fired home a wrist shot from the bottom of the left circle to even the score.

"It was a little broken play. I was on a two-on-one I think with Merks (Merkley) and I saw the goalie kind of expecting the pass so I got fortunate enough to beat him five hole," said Draisaitl of the game tying marker.

Merkley got one of his own six minutes later on a Rockets power-play to put Kelowna up 2-1.

After Victoria tied it early in the second the Rockets put it away with two more goals before the end of the middle frame.

Gage Quinney scored his fourth of the post season when his wrist shot off a nifty feed from Tyson Baillie beat Coleman Vollrath high to the glove side.

Madison Bowey closed out the scoring on another Kelowna power-play 15 minutes into the second when his wrist shot from the left faceoff circle beat a screened Vollrath.

For the second straight game the Victoria netminder watched the final buzzer from the bench. Vollrath was pulled to start the third period in favour of backup Justin Paulic.

Paulic stopped all eight shots he faced in the final 20 minutes.

The Rockets withstood a strong start by the Royals who opened the scoring just 63 seconds in when Alex Forsberg tucked the puck into an empty net following a Rockets miscue.

Victoria had several chances to widen the gap later in the period when the Rockets ran into some penalty trouble, however, Victoria hit a pair of goal posts and missed two wide open nets.

The Rockets rode the momentum from Draisaitl's shorthanded goal to their seventh straight post season victory.

"We  started a little slow again. I think by the time the second period came around we started to get our legs under us and started skating and started playing our game," said Draisaitl.

"That shows when we draw penalties and capitalize on the power-play. For two periods I think we did a pretty descent job."

Draisaitl now has three goals and eight assists to lead the Rockets in playoff scoring.

Kelowna finished 2-2 on the power-play while holding Victoria off the scoresheet on their five opportunities.

Jackson Whistle stopped 27 of 29 shots he faced to pick up the win.

The Rockets, winners of seven straight post season games, now lead the best-of-seven Western Conference semi-final three games to none. They can wrap up the series with a win Wednesday in Victoria.

A Victoria win Wednesday would force a fifth game back at Prospera Place Friday.