Playing with speed and\u00a0utilizing\u00a0his size has been Parker Alcos\u2019 calling card since he began his WHL career, but in his fourth season, he is unlocking new parts of his game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Port Moody kid returned to British Columbia when the Kelowna Rockets traded for him in early January. The Rockets are hosting this year\u2019s Memorial Cup and are matching up against the Everett Silvertips in the second round of the WHL playoffs. They swept the Kamloops Blazers in the opening round, outscoring them 21-8 through the four games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kelowna Rockets lost Peyton Kettles early in the year and knew they needed to add to their right side of defence. They targeted Alcos on the trade market due to his size and mobility, but Rockets Head Coach Derreck Martin says that Alcos has been even better than they imagined.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0brought to our team, not even we had envisioned.\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0highly intelligent. He plays with some swagger, and\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0added more physicality to his game since bringing him here,\u201d said Martin.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at our first-round series against Kamloops, a big piece of that was him and Keith McInnis being able to play big minutes against their top guys and shut them down.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alcos loves taking on the challenge of being a top shutdown defender, and he dominated in the opening round, recording three assists and a +8 through four games.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0an honour to be able to be put in that situation and be trusted by the coaches to shut down the opposition\u2019s top line throughout the game. Every night, we either want to tie or be in the plus against their top line,\u201d said Alcos.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just know that if we do our own job, we trust our teammates to do theirs. When everyone completes their job, it will be a\u00a0pretty successful\u00a0night.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Martin has seen\u00a0Alcos\u00a0create a new playstyle with the Rockets after the trade. The 6\u20194\u201d defenceman was solid for the Edmonton Oil Kings in his defensive role with the team. But now he is playing with even more confidence with the puck on his stick and is bringing more of a two-way game, rather than just being a defensive defenceman.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u00a0has\u00a0really taken advantage of being able to\u00a0mould\u00a0his game into a little bit of a different role.\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0a physical guy, and everyone knows he could skate well, but I think the opportunity that\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0had here to really be a key contributor to our team has been incredible, and\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0really fortunate\u00a0to have him,\u201d said Martin.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alcos feels like his play with the puck on his stick has grown exponentially this season. After back-to-back seasons with one goal each year, he put up five this season and more than doubled his\u00a0previous\u00a0career high in points. Even the three assists across four playoff games, while\u00a0playing in\u00a0a shutdown role, have been another boost to his confidence,\u00a0which\u00a0was\u00a0already growing this season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy confidence has skyrocketed since the trade.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0producing more and am not afraid to make mistakes,\u201d said Alcos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Playing with speed and\u00a0utilizing\u00a0his size has been Parker Alcos\u2019 calling card since he began his WHL career, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5128],"tags":[894,5,4,893,27,5313],"class_list":{"0":"post-549771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver-canucks","8":"tag-canucks","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-vancouver","12":"tag-vancouver-canucks","13":"tag-vancouvercanucks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116382205001904524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}