Looking at the standings, the Prince George Cougars had to figure they stood a good chance of snapping a five-game losing streak Friday at the expense of the Kamloops Blazers.
After all, the Blazers were only a couple points out of last overall in the 22-team WHL. But the Cougars were sadly mistaken if they thought their closest rivals were about to let them come into their own building and have their way.
The Blazers scored five unanswered goals to beat the Cats 5-1 in front of 5,820 spectators at Interior Savings Centre. The game meant nothing in the standings with both teams having missed the playoffs but it was still a disappointing result for a sputtering Cougars team.
"Any time you're playing against a team that's below you in the standings you're not going to take it as a win but you think you have a greater chance of winning and we may have thought that tonight," said Cougars assistant coach Jason Becker.
"But we have 20 guys there and we have to play for some pride and end the junior careers [of graduating Cougars Todd Fiddler, Klarc Wilson and Peter Kosterman] on good notes with at least a win."
The Blazers scored two goals 42 seconds apart to chase goalie Brett Zarowny from the game. He was replaced two minutes into the third after making 19 saves on 23 shots. Sixteen-year-old rookie Deven Sideroff cashed in a 2-on-1 chance with Cole Ully at 1:39 of the third and Collin Shirley followed up with a wrist shot for his 14th of the season, a shot that that deflected into the net off Zarowny's glove.
The Cougars had a chance to get back into the game while killing a bench penalty for too many men. Todd Fiddler took the puck in deep and launched a bullet shot turned aside by the glove of Bolton Pouliot. The Blazers used that save for incentive to create more offence. Nick Chyzowski made it 5-1 at the 8:30 mark with a low wrister that went under the arm of Ty Edmonds.
Troy Bourke opened the scoring with the only goal of the first period, his 28th of the season. That left the Cougars captain with 232 career points, one point shy of Eric Hunter's team record.
Ully collected his 30th to tie the game and Nathan Looysan scored the go-ahead goal 9:16 into the second period.
Pouliot made 35 saves as the Cougars outshot the Blazers 36-31.
"I thought Fids, [Zach] Pochiro and [Troy] Bourke were bang-on tonight, they just ran into a hot goalie," said Becker. "We missed the net on some quality chances and that hurts you but there has to be more fight from our secondary guys.
"It's not just about finishing the season but it's kind of an audition for next year, showing the staff you're going to respond to a game that means nothing in the standings. It's got to mean something to the group and yourselves while representing the city of Prince George."
The win ended an eight-game losing streak for the Blazers, who improved their last-place Western Conference record to 14-52-2-3. It was the sixth consecutive loss for the ninth-place Cougars (26-37-3-5), who will close out their 20th season in Prince George tonight at CN Centre in a rematch with the Blazers.
