The flames of a recent hot-scoring offense by the Prince George Cougars suddenly reduced to ash Wednesday night (April 14).
The team only registered 16 shots in 60 minutes against Kamloops, who shut out the designated guests 5-0 for their first regulation loss in five games.
"We weren't ready to play and we didn't compete. Simple as that," Prince George General Manager and Head Coach Mark Lamb said candidly in the post-game news conference.
"They out-competed us; that's exactly it. If you're going to let them skate around and do whatever they want, and outwork you, outskate you, outhit you and all of the above, that's exactly what's going to happen there. They're a really good hockey team. You know, we won a couple of games and that's what happened. We weren't ready to play and we didn't want to out in the 60 minutes of hard work tonight."
Goaltender Taylor Gauthier endured his second busiest of four starts in the 2020-21 B.C. Division season thus far, matching his jersey number in combining for 35 saves on 40 shots from the Blazers.
The loss drops the Cats' record back to 500 in the 24-game schedule at 3-3-1-1 and ended a two-game winning streak, while the hub hosts won their third consecutive match and improve to 7-1.
Kamloops opened the scoring eight minutes into the contest while on a power-play when Josh Pillar poked the puck behind Gauthier's glove side to complete a tic-tac-toe passing play from Orrin Centazzo and Connor Zary.
The second was batted in by Daylan Kuefler with 25 seconds left in the middle period, the eventual insurance marker of the match.
Switzerland's Inaki Baragano made it 3-0 more than three minutes into the third after firing a bullet top-shelf on the blocker side of Gauthier.
Three minutes after that, and one second after Prince George completed a penalty kill, Pillar potted his second of the night.
Caeden Bankier sealed the 5-0 deal with Kamloops' second power-play goal with 5:08 left in the contest.
The Cougars were scoreless on three man-advantages; they killed off four of six penalties.
However, Prince George continues to dominate in the circles after winning 30 of the 57 face-offs, equalling 53 per cent with Brendan Boyle (9/13, 70 per cent) and Connor Bowie (6/8, 75 per cent) leading the way.
While Coach Lamb believes there are lots of teachable moments in losing scenarios, this meeting with Blazers won't be one of them as the team hopes to quickly get back in the win column.
"You got to have some character, you got to be able to bounce back and when you go out and play three periods like that, you got to dig into it."
The Cougars have back-to-back games scheduled this weekend, returning to Kelowna on Friday (April 16) when they face the Victoria Royals as the guests in a 7:05 p.m. meeting.
This will be the first trip to the other hub city since the Rockets' completed their 14-day COVID-19 suspension on Tuesday (April 13) when the WHL announced they were clear to resume team activities.
The Cats and Rockets will meet in Kamloops on Saturday (April 17) with a 7 p.m. puck drop.
