The road to the Ed Chynoweth Cup starts at CN Centre.
Fresh from clinching the WHL Western Conference season title, the Prince George Cougars begin the quest for their first-ever league championship on Friday (7 p.m.) when they host the Spokane Chiefs in Game 1 of their best-off-seven opening-round series.
Tickets are hot commodities and playoff fever is spreading around Cougarville with the Cats responsible for raising the city's hockey temperature after a record-setting season.
No other Prince George team has ever broken the WHL’s 100-point barrier like this year’s edition did while winning the West. After an unprecedented 49 wins in 68 games, now it’s time for the Cougars to prove they can carry the momentum needed to survive the two-month postseason and win their first WHL championship.
Like most of the other Cougar veterans, Carlin Dezainde has 14 games of playoff experience on his resume but this year is different with the team expected to go deep into the postseason.
“We’re super excited, we’ve worked hard all year for something like this and it’s our favourite time of year,” said the 19-year-old Calgary native. “Everything ramps up in the playoffs, the pace, the physicality, guys get hurt. It’s so hard to explain but it’s so much more than what regular season is and everyone’s bringing their best every night. Everyone wants to win so bad and you can’t afford to take nights off, especially in the playoffs.”
The Cougars scored more goals (316) and gave up fewer (187) than in of their previous 29 years in Prince George. Six players produced at better than a point-per-game pace and Dezainde would likely have been the seventh had he not missed 17 games with a shoulder injury. He still managed to score 25 goals and 56 points in 51 games, more than doubling his production from last season.
Dezainde will be playing the left side on a line with Riley Heidt and right winger Koehn Ziemmer and will share power-play duty with the line of Zac Funk-Ondrej Becher-Terik Parsacak. Ziemmer is still trying to get his timing back after missing two-third of the season with an ankle injury. He was held off the scoresheet in his two-game return to action last weekend but with the 80-assist man Heidt distributing the puck, he and Dezainde should get plenty of chances.
Last year the Cougars went 10 games deep into the playoffs. They started with a 4-2 series win over the Tri-City Americans and were then swept in four games by the powerhouse Seattle Thunderbirds.
This year, to edge Portland as conference champions, it took a 17-0-1-1 run for first place. If the Cougars keep winning, they will start each series at home for at least the first three rounds.
“It’s huge, and we really focused on that all year,” said Dezainde. “It’s so big to have home-ice advantage, and to play in front of our fans is something we look forward to every night. It’s going to make a big difference for us.”
Chase Pauls was traded from the Lethbridge Hurricanes to the Cougars on Dec. 27 to become the third 20-year-old on the team, with Funk and Hudson Thornton. Pauls says he’s looking forward to a lengthy playoff run, coming off consecutive four-game series losses with Lethbridge in 2022 and 2023.
“Home ice will be huge, I haven’t had home ice in the playoffs in my career so far, so getting the opportunity to start with the first two at home and hopefully come out with two wins is a great opportunity for us,” said Pauls.
“I think (the Cougars’ playoff experience) has shown through the regular season. Everyone knows the playoffs are a different beast and these guys have lots of playoff series under their belts, so hopefully we can take that a roll with it in the playoffs. It comes down to the little details like getting the puck out and getting the puck in and it can end your season if you’re not on top of those things.”
The six-foot-five, 220-pound Pauls filled that need for a big and tough defensive-minded blueliner who knows his job well after four years in the league. He contributed five goals and 11 assists in 34 games since the trade.
“I bring lot of experience for our back end and I’m a hard defensive guy to ply against and I’m looking to accept that role and roll with it in the playoffs,” said Pauls, a native of Osler, Sask.
“Spokane gave us a tough time and won two games in the season series but we’ve really elevated our game since then and I like our chances going forward here.”
The Cougars split their games in Spokane, winning 6-3 on Dec. 2 and losing 4-3 Jan. 26. Both games at CN Centre ended in 5-4 overtime scores with the Chiefs winning the first game March 1 followed the next night by a Cougar win.
The Chiefs (30-32-5-1, eighth place) finished 36 points behind the Cougars (49-15-1-3) but the slate is wiped clean in the postseason, when anything can happen.
“In the first series last year (against Tri-City) we were favourites, and it’s a lot different this year because of our status, where we finished,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb.
“We’re the Number 1 team in the Western Conference, so the expectations are going to be there for us. We worked hard to get that and deserved it. When you have a team like that, you can see light at the end of the tunnel; we were pushing for that because we knew we were good enough.”
Like their hosts, the Chiefs pack a high-octane offence that produced 268 goals (fourth in the West). Led by First-Team All-Star Berky Catton, who had 54 goals and finished fourth in the scoring race with 116 points Second Team member Conner Roulette (45-63-108), the Chiefs averaged 3.94 goals per game.
“They’re an offensive team that’s going to give us problems, they’ve got two guys with over 100 points and they’ve got a really good power play,” said Lamb.
“They’ve got real good goaltending, with some depth and some good young players and they’re a team to be reckoned with.”
Catton is ranked by NHL Central Scouting ninth among draft-eligible North American skaters and defenceman Will McIsaac (98th) is also on that list. Catton, 18, centres the top scoring line with the 20-year-old Roulette and Shea Van Olm.
Both teams have been stopping the puck well. Cowan, 17, was ranked fifth among draft-eligible North American goalies by NHL Central Scouting in the mid-term report. Cowan played in 43 of the 68 Chiefs games.
"He's been really good, giving us chances to win on nights when we're not on top of our game and that's what you need from your goalie," said Chiefs head coach Ryan Smith. "He's come along nicely over the last couple years. It takes a little time for some goalies and Prince George has got the same thing with a young guy who's come into his own."
The Cougars have a solid 1-2 punch in net with the aforementioned rookie Joshua Ravensbergen, 17, who went 26-4-1-1 with a 2.46 goals-against average, .907 save percentage and six shutouts, while 19-year-old Ty Young has also looked sharp putting up a 23-111-0-2 record with 2.79 GAA and .903 save rate.
The Chiefs blueliners, including McIsaac (6-21-27), Brayden Crompton (9-48-57), Layton Feist (9-29-39) and Saige Weinstein (10-15-25) have been rewarded with points for moving the puck quickly and they won’t be afraid to lead the rushes. Weinstein, 18, signed Oct 6 as a free agent with the Colorado Avalanche.
"That was a huge accomplishment for him, not getting drafted, like every young guy it's a disappointing moment but he got over it real quick and got invited to their development camp and made a good impression there," said Smith. "He got invited back to training camp and the main camp and earned a contract. It's a good story for all players and we as a staff are excited for him. He's an all-around defenceman and you can see the confidence he got from signing that contract."
Another player to watch is rookie left winger Chase Harrington, a 16-year-old Prince George native and the Chiefs’ eighth-overall pick in the WHL Prospects Draft, who came on strong in the second half and put up 10 of his 22 points in the past two months, playing with Hayden Paupanekis and Cam Parr.
"It's a special moment for him,"said Smith. "A month ago he got to play in front of his friends and family and now this, the icing on the cake from him, a hometown guy who gets his first taste of the WHL playoffs. He's a young guy who's found his way and has been steadily improving throughout the year. There won't be a lot of Chiefs fans in the stands but I'm sure the Harrington clan will be right behind us, so that will be proud moment for him and his family."
The Cougars ranked No. 2 in the WHL in power-plays (30.1 per cent) and penalty killing (84.3 per cent), as compared to the Chiefs’ 24.3 per cent power play rate (seventh in WHL) while killing off 74.3 per cent of their penalties(15th).
Saturday’s Game 2 starts at 6 p.m. at CN Centre.
The series will then switch to Spokane for Game 3 on Tuesday (7 p.m.), Game 4 on Wednesday (6:30 p.m.) and, if necessary, Game 5 on Friday (7 p.m.). If it goes longer, Prince George would host Game 6 on Monday, April 8 and Game 7 on Wednesday, April 10.
RW Hunter Laing (concussion) is the only injured Cougar. The Chiefs will be missing forwards Markus Ekstrom (lower body) and Coco Armstrong (upper body), listed as week to week.
Prediction: Cougars in six
