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Written by TED CLARKE, Citizen staff
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Monday, 26 January 2009 |
The Alberta prairie has been a cold and barren place this season for the Prince George Cougars.
Cougar wins in that province have been as scarce as chinooks this bone-chilling winter and the Medicine Hat Tigers and Lethbridge Hurricanes emphasized that fact by sending the Cats back to B.C., after being held pointless on the weekend.
“Alberta wasn’t too friendly to us this year,” said Cougars head coach Wade Klippenstein. “Other than the two wins we had in Edmonton, we had a tough time there (while losing six of eight games to Alberta-based opponents).”
A day after being battered 7-2 by the Hurricanes, the Cougars ran into a hot goalie Saturday night in Medicine Hat and lost 5-2 to the Tigers. Sixteen-year-old Tyler Bunz, whose team was outshot 39-34, made 37 saves to earn the win.
Sean Ringrose, a Tigers’ 20-year-old centre, scored two goals and an assist to whip the sellout crowd of 4,006 at Medicine Hat Arena into a frenzy. Ringrose gave the Tigers their first lead of the game six minutes into the third period, beating Cougars goaltender Joe Caligiuri with a well-placed shot to put the Tigers up 2-1. His second goal of the night to make it 3-1 came as a result of a fortunate deflection. Ringrose was standing in the right place as linemate Tristan King lofted the puck at the Prince George net.
“The puck just seemed to be bouncing in for me,” Ringrose told the Medicine Hat News. “I was just kind of going hard to the net. They weren’t the prettiest goals, I guess, but I had some lucky bounces.”
Linden Vey followed up with a pair of goals late in the second and early in the third to put the game out of reach. Colton Grant scored for the Tigers in the first period, after Brett Connolly collected his 21st of the season. The 16-year-old rookie now leads the Cougars in points with 43, three ahead of Dana Tyrell, who is out for the season with a knee injury. The Cats were also without Brian Matte, a 26-point forward this season, who broke his collarbone Wednesday in Edmonton. The Cougars missed having him around.
“Brian probably plays close to 25 minutes a night and that means 25 more minutes we have to put other guys into who are obviously younger than him and they don’t have the experience or the size or the maturity he has,” said Klippenstein. “But at the same time it’s an opportunity for
those guys to play.”
Caligiuri took the loss in goal for the Cougars. Bunz was actually only beaten once by a Prince George player. The Cougars second goal came late in the third period, when Tigers defenceman Thomas Carr accidentally knocked the puck into his own net while killing a penalty. Cougars centre Marcus Watson was given credit for the goal, his fourth of the season.”
“I thought we got the start we needed and at times we played really well,” Klippenstein said. “Part of our plan was not allowing Medicine Hat on the power play and we did a good job of that with only two opportunities. We had a lot of shots on goal but couldn’t capitalize on our chances. I thought their young goalie played well and he was the difference.”
The loss dropped the Cougars season record to 19-29-0-2. They’ll be based in Kelowna the next three days leading up to Wednesday night’s encounter with the Rockets, who have lost the last three meetings between the teams.
-- with files from the Medicine Hat News
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Last Updated ( Monday, 26 January 2009 )
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