Marc McNulty knows the Kamloops Blazers' playoff odds are getting long as the season grows short.
But while there's still that possibility the Blazers will be playing beyond this weekend, the 19-year-old Blazer defenceman is not losing faith his team will keep up its end of the bargain and beat the Prince George Cougars in regulation time tonight at CN Centre and Saturday in Kamloops.
Depending upon what happens to the Tri-City Americans, anything less than a four-point weekend for the Blazers will likely mean another springtime misery of playoff exclusion for McNulty, who endured three non-playoff years with the Cougars.
"It's a tight race right now and I'm confident in our group and what we can do to pull out some wins and get in the playoffs," said McNulty, who picked up an assist in Wednesday's 4-2 loss to the Cougars.
In McNulty's first game in Prince George wearing a Blazers uniform, the Cougars took an early two-goal lead Wednesday and extended it to 3-0 after two periods but Kamloops answered with two third-period goals and pounded the Cougars' net with some close-calls while looking for the equalizer late in the game.
"The first two periods we didn't have much energy and were kind of dead from the start but the second intermission we kind of bonded together and decided to make a game out of it and we came close but it just wasn't enough," McNulty said.
"I was pretty nervous before the game but it was nice playing here again. It would have been nice to get the win. They came out pretty aggressive and we were hemmed in our zone most of the first two periods. We didn't have a great effort. Hopefully we'll get in the playoffs too, and you never know what can happen once you're in there."
McNulty, a sixth-round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings in 2013, has three goals and 12 points in 28 games since being dealt to the Blazers January in a swap of defencemen that sent Josh Connolly to the Cougars.
The Cougars still need one more point to clinch a playoff spot (see related story) but head coach Mark Holick wasn't at all interested in talking about the possible scenarios in the Cougars' future, His primary concern is winning tonight's game (7 p.m. start) and then the Cats can look ahead to a possible first-round playoff matchup against the Victoria Royals.
"We want to go into Friday's game playing hard -- we bent a little bit in the third period and we want to make sure we address that (Thursday) with some video and then get ready for Friday," said Holick. "I think we're in a good spot but we'll let the league sort that out. We still have to win some games."
Holick loved his team's start Wednesday and thought the Cougars should have been even further ahead in the count after 40 minutes. He hopes his team learned a lesson not to let off the gas pedal against a team of Blazers fighting for their playoff lives.
He especially liked the job his checking line of left winger Colby McAuley, centre Kody McDonald and right winger Tyler Mrkonjic did in keeping the Blazers high-scoring trio -- Cole Ully, Matt Needham and Deven Sideroff -- off the scoreboard. McAuley scored his fourth of the season to make it a 2-0 game.
"They were our best line," said Holick. "I thought that McDonald did a great job on Needham, that's a good line and they provide a lot of the offence for Kamloops. But I expect them to come back and be better. They're a good team and Don (Hay) is a good coach and they'll be better."
The Cougars are the most penalized team in the WHL, with 1,294 minutes in 70 games, an average of 18.5 minutes per game. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Kootenay Ice, which has 690 minutes of sinbin time for a 9.9 minute-per-game average. The Cougars are also last in the league in penalty-killing, a 71.5 per cent success rate, but they didn't have to worry about in Wednesday's game. They avoided the penalty box the entire game.
The Blazers were almost as disciplined, taking just two minors. Kamloops is way down the list of most penalized teams, ranking 14th out of 22 with 915 total minutes for a 13.1 minute-per-game average. They successfully have killed off 77.4 per cent of their penalties 16th-best in the WHL.
The Cougars won't have the services of left winger Aaron Macklin (upper-body injury) and Haydn Hopkins (wrist injury) but are otherwise healthy going into the weekend.
LOOSE PUCKS: Holick thought Cougars centre Brad Morrison deserved his second goal of the game and 24th of the season when he shot the puck off the crossbar, 6:36 into the third period Wednesday. The Cougar coach is convinced the puck hit the top middle bar inside the net before it dropped down outside of the goal line. After initially motioning it as no goal, the on-ice officials conferred, but Holick said the instant replay video was not available to them and they were unable to determine if it should have been called a goal.
"Watching our video, that puck went into the net, it hit the middle bar," said Holick. "But there was a malfunction with the video and it is what it is. It worked out for us but we're going to try to correct that and be ready."
