Outshot, outscored and outplayed in yet another home-ice loss.
They're riddled with injuries, out of a playoff position, and dangerously close to the Western Hockey League basement.
Could it get much worse for the Prince George Cougars? They hope not.
Losers of 15 of their last 17 games, the Cats were unable to break out of their funk Saturday at CN Centre, where they were dumped 4-1 by the Kelowna Rockets.
The Rockets (24-23-2-4) scored three unanswered goals in the second period and lambasted rookie Cougar goalie Devon Fordyce with 49 shots to make it a weekend sweep.
Filling in for injured 20-year-old Drew Owsley, who got hurt in Friday's warmup, Fordyce (1-7-1), made his first back-to-back starts this season but couldn't bail out the offensively challenged Cougars (16-34-0-2), the lowest-scoring team in the WHL.
"Being able to play a bit more here was good and playing fairly well too was a good thing to have happened," said Fordyce, 18. "I was kind of forced to play well with Owsley being injured and unable to play.
"It was a good start to the game until we got to the second and got in a little penalty trouble and a few quick goals and the momentum starts to change. Sometimes if it's a close game we have a tendency to shut down."
The Cougars have been outscored 70-38 in second periods this season. They didn't do much to reverse that trend, giving up 21 shots in the middle frame, much to the dismay of most in the crowd of 1,857.
Rockets goalie Adam Brown evened his record to 18-18-2, and didn't have much work on his hands, making 14 saves in the Kelowna nets as the Cougars recorded a season-low 15 shots.
"We liked that lopsided shot clock." said Rockets left winger Carter Rigby, who played 12 games in two partial seasons with the Cougars before a trade to Kelowna last summer.
"We played well defensively tonight. We've had some struggles the last couple weeks with our shots too so we just put everything on net and we were blocking shots."
The Rockets have now beaten the Cougars in six of the seven games in the season series. Although this one wasn't close, five of those games were decided by the slimmest of margins, including a 2-1 Kelowna win Friday.
The second period wasn't all bad for the Cougars. Encouraged by a post-to-post kick save by Fordyce off Jesse Lees, Jordan Tkatch sprung Daulton Siwak free with a stretch pass and his slapper found the net.
The Rockets responded with a pass-out to Tyrell Goulbourne, who caught Fordyce too far back in his crease. Myles Bell followed up 35 seconds with a long shot from just inside the blueline that Fordyce didn't see until it was too late. Late in the period, Rigby tapped in his 14th goal and 27th point, standing in the slot with the Rockets on a power play.
Shane McColgan opened the scoring in the first period on a Rockets' power play, putting a move on Tkatch, whose stick had been broken by a point blast. The Cougars were already under siege, with Spencer Asuchak, the other checking forward, hobbled by a shot off his ankle.
The injury-plagued Cougars had seven 16 year olds in the lineup Saturday. Already without injured blueliners Daniel Gibb and Shane Pilling, the Cougars lost Linden Springer when he blocked a shot with his ankle in the first period and had to be taken to hospital for X-rays.
"Obviously it's frustrating with all the injuries but that's no excuse, they battled harder than us this weekend and came out more desperate and took both games," said Asuchak. "[Fordyce] was pretty amazing for a young guy, he did his job but we didn't get enough goals for him."
KITTY LITTER: Raymond Grewal (Cariboo Cougars) and Marc McNulty (Medicine Hat midgets) were called up to fill in on defence... The Cougars were also missing forwards Brock Hirsche, John Odgers, Caleb Belter, Jarrett Fontaine and Alex Forsberg... The Cats host the Edmonton Oil Kings, the top-ranked team in the East, this weekend.
