This season, the Kelowna Rockets became just the eighth team in Western Hockey League history to win at least 57 games, but they were grounded two steps short of the Memorial Cup by a team with a decided advantage in experience and firepower.

Kelowna showed its mettle in rallying from a 3-0 deficit in Game 1 of the Western Conference final against the Portland Winterhawks. The Rockets won that game 5-4 in front of a capacity crowd at Prospera Place and a national TV audience and the rumbling started in WHL circles: Kelowna would be the team to finally knock the Winterhawks off their pedestal.

Portland fell behind by two goals in Games 2 and 3 and came back to win each, then scored decisive victories in Games 4 and 5 to earn its 12th straight series win against Western Conference opponents.

The Winterhawks are headed to the WHL final for the fourth straight year — the first team to achieve that feat since the New Westminster Bruins did it from 1975 -78. The Hawks have beaten four different opponents in the conference final round since 2011 (Spokane, Tri-City, Kamloops and Kelowna).

The Rockets successfully negotiated a second-round sweep of the Seattle Thunderbirds without leading scorer Myles Bell, but missed the 42-goal scorer in a series against the leading offensive team in the league. To their credit, the Rockets and coach Ryan Huska never used Bell’s absence as an excuse for coming up short against the Winterhawks. They believed in the group they had, a group that was solid in depth but lacking the high-end skill to run with Portland.

Portland scored at least four goals in all five games — 24 in all — and has put up 68 goals in 14 postseason contests. Five Winterhawks are averaging at least 1.5 points per game in the playoffs, including West final MVP Nic Petan, who had 11 points against Kelowna.

The Rockets, meanwhile, didn’t get a standout performance from anyone outside of 16-year-old budding star Nick Merkley and 20-year-old goalie Jordon Cooke, whose numbers don’t look as good as he played.

After Game 5, a 7-3 Portland win that got out of hand in the third period, Huska told media that the Rockets didn’t exert enough effort to overcome the Winterhawks:

“I hate to say it, but I think we got out-competed,” said Rockets head coach Ryan Huska. “Everybody can point to penalties and power plays all they want . . . they have more skill on the other side than we do, but the disappointing fact is that I felt we got out-competed for the majority of the series.” Specifically, Huska said the series spun on Game 2, just 24 hours after Kelowna rallied to win Game 1, overcoming a 3-0 deficit for a 5-4 victory. The next night, in Game 2, Portland overcame a 3-1 deficit and scored a decisive 5-3 victory, scoring the game’s final four goals. “We stood around and watched,” said Huska. “When they pushed, we needed something back and we didn’t have a rebuttal. Again, I come back to the compete factor, and that’s your 1-on-1 battles, that’s having more urgency to play the game. You can stomach being outskilled; that’s the way it is sometimes, some guys are blessed with more skill. But the hard part that we’re more disappointed about right now is, I felt, is we didn’t have enough compete in a lot of the games.” (Kelowna Daily Courier)

Portland coach Mike Johnston said he “disagreed” with Huska’s assessment, and felt it was a “hell of a series” between the teams:

“I think we did have some big-game players that rose up at certain moments, and made a difference in the game.” (Kelowna Daily Courier)

Johnston pointed to Game 3 as the turning point in the series, when the Hawks threw 65 shots at Cooke but needed two goals in the final three minutes of regulation to force a 3-3 tie, then won 10 minutes into overtime.

He could’ve also pointed to the decision to replace 18-year-old goaltender Brendan Burke with overage backup Corbin Boes, who came into Game 2 with the Hawks trailing 3-1 and ended up winning four straight games. Boes, who hadn’t played since March 7, posted a 1.84 goals-against average and .941 save percentage in the series.

With Boes excelling, Portland is firing on all cylinders heading into a third consecutive matchup with the Edmonton Oil Kings. Boes played in 16 regular-season games with Portland after coming over from Lethbridge in a midseason trade, but Johnston never wavered from his support of Burke heading into the playoffs. He made a change, though, after Burke allowed eight goals on 48 shots in a little over four periods against the Rockets.

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