The Cariboo Cougars have pretty much had it their way all season in the B.C. Hockey Major Midget League.
Aside from losing 8-0 in their home-opener to Valley West back on Oct. 8 and a 3-3 tie with Fraser Valley Nov. 12, the Cougars took an otherwise unblemished record onto the ice with them to face the Vancouver Northwest Giants in a weekend series at Kin 1.
Usually in the thick of the battle for the regular-season title, the Giants came to Prince George ranked seventh in the 11-team league.
The Giants’ record might be mediocre but they sure didn’t play that way.
Less than a day after pushing the high-and-mighty Cougars to overtime before losing 3-2 Saturday afternoon, the Giants offered stiff resistance again in the rematch Sunday morning. Despite falling behind by four goals in the third period, they mounted a late comeback but came up short, losing 6-4.
“I don’t think the standings are indicative of the type of team they are,” said Cougars assistant coach Bryan MacLean. “They’ve got quality goaltending, good guys on the back end and a good group up front, they just had a bit of a learning period the first half of the season but I don’t think they’re going to stay where they are.
“We had to make sure we stuck with it for 60 minutes today. We had a bit of a lull in the third period and they got the two quick ones. It’s a good lesson to make sure we keep our foot on the gas.”
The Cats were clinging to the slimmest of leads early in the third period when forward Trey Thomas stole the puck in the slot, spun away from his check and lifted a backhander that caught the corner of the net in behind Giants goalie Donovan Buskey. Riley Krane and Jarin Sutton also pounced with third-period offerings, increasing the Cougars’ lead to 6-2.
Just when the Cougars thought they had the game in the bag, the Giants struck for a pair of goals 31 seconds apart with still four minutes to play. Zach Bolton connected on a power play, and Trevor Longo blasted in a shot from the point that made the net bulge behind Marcus Allen. That gave the Cougars a bit of a scare but their lead turned out to be safe and they went home with their 16th win in 18 games this season.
“We have a lot of speed and depth and when you can play four lines and six defencemen in a game it makes a huge difference in tiring the other team out,” said MacLean. “That’s something we pride ourselves on this season and you can see it’s working so far.”
Devin Sutton opened the scoring for the Cougars just 57 seconds into the game but Giants pointman Mackenzie Gray tied it a few minutes later on a power play. Jeremy Gervais made it a 2-1 game late in the period with the teams playing 4-on-4. The Cougars defenceman joined the rush and took a shot from close range that went in off Buskey’s arm.
The teams traded power-play goals in the second period. Logan Doust collected a perfect saucer pass across the crease from Giants captain Jack Graham and made it count, 4:37 into the second period. Two minutes later, Mason Richey put the Cats’ ahead with a lead they’d never relinquish, scoring on a tap-in from the side of the net after Jarin Sutton did most of the work carrying the puck to the net down the left wing.
The Cougars outshot the Giants 39-22.
“We knew, even though they’re a bit lower in the standings, they’d still be a hard team to play and we had to give it our all this weekend,” said Cougars captain Jesse Pomeroy. “We’re just trying to stay on top of the pile. We had a little slump in the third period (Sunday) and we thought we’d already won the game with six minutes left but we never stopped the rest of the game, other than that.”
On Saturday, Darian Long took a pass in the slot and buried the puck in behind Giants goalie Jesse Makaj, 3:33 into extra time. Thomas had tied it for the Cougars 8:09 into the third period. Dominic Davis and Hudson Schandor were the Giants goalscorers. Pomeroy notched the first Cariboo goal. Zach Wickson picked up the win in the Cougar nets.
The Cougars (16-1-1-0) will travel to Kelowna this weekend for a two-game series against the Okanagan Rockets. The second-place Rockets (14-3-0-1) lost their weekend set 5-4 and 5-3 to the Thompson Blazers and dropped four points behind the league-leading Cougars.
