The Prince George Cougars did not have to be reminded of the importance of putting together a winning weekend.
Anything less in their two-game home series with the Kelowna Rockets and the Cougars might have been facing a bridge too far trying to get back into first place in the WHL's B.C. Division.
Ty Rimmer closed that gap in a big way Saturday night at CN Centre, damming all 24 of the Rockets torpedoes in a 3-0 shutout.
"My rebound control has been shaky at times but it was better tonight," said Rimmer, who now has three shutouts this season. "I was sound positionally and the boys played well in front of me and let me see the shots and kept them to the outside and that made for a pretty easy game."
It wasn't really that easy. The Rockets had several great chances to open the scoring early in the first period on a two-man power play that lasted nearly a minute but Rimmer wasn't interested in what they were selling. His trapper save on Zach Franco while almost doing the splits was right out of a Brooks Robinson baseball highlight film.
"We were shorthanded, killing off a 5-on-3, and I was able to get my glove on that rebound and the boys kind of rallied behind that and we never looked back," said Rimmer, who backed the Cougars to a 4-2 win Friday.
Rimmer and James Priestner spent four days in practice last week working with goalie coach Blaine Russell and Rimmer demonstrated that was money well spent. Seconds after he turned Franco away, he stiffed Evan Bloodoff, kicking out his leg to take away a close-range one-timer. Rimmer's teammates joined in the fun, blocking shots, and winning the body wars to get to loose pucks, much to the delight of their fans at CN Centre, all 2,060 of them, who let out a hearty cheer as the Cats returned to full strength.
Late in the period the crowd erupted when James Dobrowolski found the net. The big Cats centre used his forehand to win a face-off in the Rockets' end and caught up to the loose puck in time to chip it past Adam Brown with a sharp-angle backhander.
Two quick goals in the second period ended the night for Brown. Defenceman Martin Marincin had the presence of mind to lay off the slapshot and instead flicked a wrist shot off the lively end boards, giving Taylor Stefishen time to get two whacks at the puck at the side of the net. Twenty-four seconds later, Troy Bourke made it 3-0, taking advantage of a wide-open canvas to paint his 14th goal of the season, a play set up by rushing defenceman Sena Acolatse.
Acolatse promised earlier in the week he'd step up his intensity for the weekend series and his calm under fire moving the puck in his own end set the tone for his teammates.
"We knew going in to this weekend that we needed a sweep to have any chance of catching them and the boys were ready for that," said Acolatse. "Rimmer was great this weekend, he knew he had to be better and we were called out on some leadership issues and needed to step up too and I felt we did."
Acolatse took on Mitchell Chapman near the end of the game as payback for a cheap knee-first hit on Bourke. Like he's done in most of his scraps at CN Centre this season, Acolatse earned a convincing decision.
The Cougars had lost six straight to the Rockets prior to Friday's game. Kelowna came to town on a seven-game winning streak, nine points ahead of the Cats in second place, but that lead has been cut to five.
"Even in games we've beaten them in Kelowna where the score seemed lopsided, the games weren't really like that," said Rockets assistant coach Ryan Cuthbert. "We got some bounces in some of those games and this weekend as a group we didn't compete as hard as we needed to. Our power play was awful, to say the least. But give them credit, they picked it apart and did a good job."
The penalty-killing forwards, especially Czech import Jaroslav Vlach, were ferocious in tracking the puck and that led to good things in the other end of the ice.
"We know most games, if we score first, we win games," said Vlach. "Ty had an amazing effort, he caught the puck clean and didn't give up any rebounds and that helped us out lots."
The Cougars did not allow a power-play goal in 14 opportunities in the two games. The Rockets went 0-for-8 on Saturday. Key to that success was the job the Cats did pressuring Rockets defenceman Tyson Barrie.
"I thought we were even better than we were on Friday night and we were pretty good (Friday) night so that's good to have a couple back-to-back real solid games so that we can carry that momentum on the road," said Cougars head coach Dean Clark.
"We need our better players to lead in work ethic and doing the little things right and when you get that you get some pretty good team play and we had that for sure. We changed a few things in the neutral zone and that really helped, we kept (Barrie) off-balance most of the time."
The Cougars leave today for a five-games-in-six nights trip to Alberta that starts with a game Tuesday in Edmonton.
KITTY LITTER: The start of the game was delayed 15 minutes when a puck shattered the glass behind the Kelowna net during warm-ups. It was the eighth Cougar game at CN Centre this season in which a pane of Plexiglas has met that fate... Cougars F Spencer Asuchak served the last of an eight-game suspension for using a banned over-the-counter stimulant... The team will practice today in Bourke's hometown of Onoway, Alta.
