Ty Edmonds had no need to smash a $300 goal stick this time.
This time, there was nothing for the Price George Cougars goalie to get mad about Saturday at CN Centre, not after he turned in a spectacular effort while blocking 32 shots in a 4-1 victory over the Spokane Chiefs.
“We all came out strong and it helped that we all played good defensively and we got the win,” said Edmonds.
It was a much different story for Edmonds Friday night when he was replaced after allowing two goals in less than 22 minutes of playing time in what became a 3-2 loss to the same Chiefs.
He was incensed to not be given the chance to finish what he started and made that known to all his teammates when he wound up with a big lumberjack swing and shattered his stick against the boards as he left the ice.
The highs and lows of being a hockey goalie were never so apparent as they were in the two games. Fortunately for Edmonds, the Cougars had their goalie coach, Justin Cardinal, and sports psychologist Saul Miller on hand on the weekend to help him endure his own peaks and valleys.
“Mark (Cougars head coach Holick) and I talked about it man-to-man and we came to a resolution and I told him I wanted to play tonight and he honoured it by respecting me and letting me play and I came out hard for him and it paid off for us,” said Edmonds. “It just shows the respect we have for each other. It’s tough, but you have to bounce back no matter what, at this level.”
Holick said he didn’t fault Edmonds for his team’s poor start Friday against the Chiefs. He yanked him to shake up his teammates, and Edmonds responded the following game like Holick believed he would, with a lights-out effort.
“I just thought we were flat and his response was directed at his teammates and I loved it,” said Holick. “He was letting a couple guys know that they had to get their act together. He cares and he wants to win and unfortunately he took the brunt of it, but that had zero to do with Ty.
“I knew he would come back and battle and compete like he did and that shows you how far he’s come in his career.”
The Cougars scored just 46 seconds into Saturday’s game, taking advantage of an early hooking penalty issued to Chiefs defenceman Hudson Elynuik. Chase Witala took a cross-ice pass in the face-off circle and fired in his 39th, which left him tied with Jesse Gabrielle for the team lead.
It didn’t take long for Spokane to tie it up and Dominic Zwerger did the deed while lying stretched out on the ice on his side. Elynuik chipped the puck into the slot and Zwerger reached with his stick and swatted it in.
The Cougars played with more desperation than they showed in Friday’s loss and their puck pursuit took its toll on an injury-riddled Spokane team missing six key regulars.
The Cougars went back to the attack after the first intermission and grabbed the lead again 27 seconds into the second period. Tate Olson sent the puck in deep and Witala corralled it behind the net and fed linemate Brad Morrison, who showed soft hands raising a backhander in from a sharp angle while standing just off the post.
The Cougars and Chiefs traded chances back and forth but Edmonds and Chiefs goalie Tyson Verhelst came up with show-stopping saves.
In the third period, the Cougars took control of the game and had a handful of forwards misfire on golden opportunities, which kept it a one-goal game until the 17:40 mark when Brogan O’Brien was in the right place to swat in the rebound of a hard Gabrielle shot from the corner.
O’Brien’s goal, his 18th of the season, brought out a collective sigh of relief from the pro-Cougar crowd of 4,290 in attendance at CN Centre. Kody McDonald added to the total with an empty-netter with five seconds left.
“I thought it was one of our better efforts in a while,” said Holick. “In the first 40, I thought our D-zone was a bit sloppy and we didn’t clear pucks when we had opportunities, but our third period was real good.
“We had 18 shots on net in the second period and I thought we deserved better but we had a lead after 40 and something we pride ourselves in is closing that out and we did that. They’re a depleted group and we felt if we kept skating and kept being physical, putting pucks to the paint, we’d be rewarded and the O’Brien goal was proof of that.”
Reunited with Morrison and Jansen Harkins, a forward trio that played a lot together last season, Witala had several chances to net his 40th goal, but that will have to wait. Witala’s two assists left him with 235 points in his career, just one shy of Troy Bourke’s all-time Prince George franchise record.
“It was fun with Brad and Jansen, they’re both very creative offensive players and the chances are going to come for sure, but we have to bear down more to put the game away earlier,” said Witala.
“(Edmonds) was fantastic tonight, he really held us in there and made some key saves and that’s what we need from him. It’s a lot easier for us when we have him going back there.”
Witala, who already owns the franchise record for goals with 119, has five games left to try to set a new points mark. The Cougars will be in Kelowna on Wednesday to play the Rockets, then travel to Victoria for a two-game set Friday and Saturday. They wrap up the regular season with a home-and-home series with Kamloops the following weekend.
The win kept the Cougars (36-27-3-1) three points ahead of Kamloops, which won 3-2 in Kelowna Saturday to complete a two-game weekend sweep of the Rockets. With their 36th win, the Cougars matched the second-highest win total the team has ever posted since the franchise moved to Prince George from Victoria in 1994.
Chiefs head coach Don Nachbaur was relieved to get the weekend split, knowing how banged up his team is as they fight to stay in a playoff position. Upper-body injuries left them without Jason Fram, their top defenceman and power-play quarterback, as well as leading scorer Kailer Yamamoto, who has been sidelined five weeks.
“We gutted it out and gave it our best effort and I have no complaints about our try and compete but we ran out of gas,” said Nachbaur. “We played nine forwards two nights in a row. We were snakebitten around the net. Playing three games four nights with a shortened lineup, it caught up to us.”
The Chiefs (30-26-5-4, eighth in Western Conference) hold down the last wild-card spot and are just four points ahead of the ninth-place Tri-City American. The Chiefs and Americans each have seven games left and play each other twice.
