When and if the Prince George Cougars solve their penalty-killing woes, they might just climb the ladder in the WHL standings.
But until then, good teams like the Brandon Wheat Kings will continue to expose a weakness that is crippling the Cats.
Wednesday's game at CN Centre was a classic example of why the Cougars rank dead-last in penalty-killing in the 22-team league. The Wheat Kings connected on half their power-play chances, scoring at a 4-for-8 clip, and those four goals were enough to put the visitors over the top in a 7-4 victory.
The stats don't lie and right now, as the Cougars embark on a three-games-in-three-nights trip to Alberta, they can't hide behind the fact they've killed off only 67.9 per cent of their penalty situations. It doesn't help that they are the most penalized team in the WHL with 342 penalty minutes through 13 games, an average of 26.3 minutes per game. Considering most games last 60 minutes, that means there's a Cougar cooling his heels in the box nearly half the time in each game.
While the Cougars' power play was OK, scoring twice on seven chances Wednesday in a penalty-filled game, Cougars head coach Mark Holick blamed his team's loosey-goosey defensive zone coverage on special teams for the losing result.
"There's no doubt, our penalty-kill's rock bottom and guys are missing assignments and when you do that against teams like [Brandon] you're going to give up some goals," said Holick. "We had some traction, our penalty kill hasn't been a sore spot for a few games.
"I thought we were nose-for-nose with those guys and I liked our effort. But at the end of the day we took eight minors and spent too much time killing and missed those assignments."
October started with so much promise for the Cougars. Through six games they only allowed five goals in the 30 times they played shorthanded and won five of six. That string of effectiveness was snapped last weekend in Vancouver, where the Cougars suffered their worst defeat of the season, a 9-1 loss to the Giants in which they allowed Vancouver to score on three of five power-play chances.
The Cougars are their own worst enemies at times. On Wednesday, just after they'd closed the gap to 5-4 and had all the momentum late in the third period, Cougars winger Jari Erricson took a selfish slashing penalty and on the ensuing power play Nolan Patrick scored to put the game out of reach.
"Hard penalties, you can't complain about that, but stick penalties, those are the ones that hurt us the most," said Cougars forward Chase Witala. "Stick penalties are kind of a sign of laziness, you're not moving your feet and you have to haul someone down. We just have to stay away from those and we'll be fine. We can compete with any team."
The Cougars, however, also have to figure out how to keep the other team from scoring in general. Only Portland has allowed more goals than Prince George, which has given up 57, an average of 4.38 per game.
Offensively, centre Jared Bethune scored his first WHL goal Wednesday and now has four points in three games since joining the Cougars a couple weeks ago from the USHL. Bethune set up linemate Brad Morrison for his second goal of the season. That combination, with David Soltes on the left side, lacks grit but will be counted on for goal production and will continue to draw second-unit power-play time.
The task at hand this weekend away from home will be difficult. Tonight's opponent, the Red Deer Rebels, have a losing record, ranked fourth in the Central Division at 3-7-1-0, but the Edmonton Oil Kings (7-3-0-1, second in the Central) and Calgary Hitmen (6-4-0-1, third in the Central) have what it takes to expose the Cougars' weaknesses.
The Cougars defence will have to get better at closing up space on attacking forwards and clearing the net area. Two of the Brandon goals came off rebounds and too many times goalie Ty Edmonds had to come up with second and third saves after stopping the original shot.
Edmonds has played in all 13 games so far and Holick hinted he might give 16-year-old backup Tavin Grant a start in one of the games this weekend. Grant, who was yanked after one period in his only start, Oct. 5 in an 8-2 loss to Kelowna, has an 8.07 goals-against average and a .780 save percentage in 97 minutes played over four games.
