Nachbaur earns 700th win as Wild take 5-4 victory in Kelowna Wednesday

KELOWNA, British Columbia – The list of Western Hockey League coaches to reach the 700-win plateau is quite brief.

The Wenatchee Wild did their part to make that list a little longer on Wednesday night at Prospera Place.

Wild head coach Don Nachbaur became the third WHL coach to achieve that milestone thanks to Wenatchee’s 5-4 win over the Kelowna Rockets, in a game that saw the Wild jump into the driver’s seat with three straight goals, only to successfully defend three separate one-goal leads. One of the club’s newest defensemen scored early in the third to give the Wild a lead they would never relinquish, and the eventual game-winner was scored by one of the two 16-year-olds on the team’s roster.

It was Kelowna who broke through for the first goal, though, as Michael Cicek snuck away from the crowd and got open on the right half for a power play marker at 13:19 of the first. Wenatchee fired off 18 shots on net in the second period, and finally broke the seal on the Kelowna cage at 9:24 of the period with a 3-on-1 power play goal from Maddix McCagherty.

A quiet first 40 minutes belied the offensive onslaught to come – Eastyn Mannix opened the scoring in the period at 2:45 by ripping a shot to the top corner for a 2-1 advantage, followed by a power play goal from Shaun Rios just under the crossbar 90 seconds later.

Each time the Rockets counterpunched, the Wild swung right back – Kanjyu Gojsic’s goal at 7:02 off a feed out front was met by a shorthanded goal from Lukas McCloskey into the top corner of the net with 10:20 to play. Gojsic scored again with 7:53 to go on a rebound from a Nate Corbet shot, but a McCloskey shot with 4:27 left jumped off of Jake Pilon’s pads and found Caelan Joudrey in the left-wing circle, who pounced on the second chance. Max Graham buried a one-timer down the slot with 28 seconds to play, but that was as close as the Rockets would get.

“It’s not easy to win on the road, and it’s always sweet when that happens,” said Nachbaur. “We competed really hard tonight. We were physical in the second period – our guys really responded in the second with that big goal from McCagherty on the 3-on-1 rush. I thought we really steamrolled after that. We owned the period, and that started with some really big hits. I’d point out the Dawson Seitz hit that led to the goal up ice to get us back in the game, and from that point forward, we played really well.”

Mannix and McCloskey each ended the night with a goal and an assist, while Rios potted his first goal in a Wenatchee uniform, and the Wild went 2-for-4 on the power play and earned a goal on the man-advantage for the eighth straight game. Zach Zahara returned to the win column thanks to 28 saves, and Wenatchee climbed to 8-10-3-0 on the season. Gojsic’s two goals and Andrew Cristall’s two assists led Kelowna in the loss, while Pilon stopped 37 of 42 Wenatchee shots and the Rockets slipped to 8-9-1-1 for the year.

Wenatchee continues a three-game road stretch on Saturday as they travel to Portland for a U.S. Division date against the Winterhawks. The opening puck drop at Veterans Memorial Coliseum is scheduled for 6 p.m., with live coverage on Newsradio 560 KPQ. The Wild are next on home ice against the Tri-City Americans in a Black Friday contest on November 29 – tickets for that game and all regular-season home games are on sale now by phone at 509-888-7825, or by visiting the team office at Town Toyota Center. Updated news and information on Wild hockey are always available through the team’s website and on the team’s social media platforms on Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.