If familiarity breeds contempt, the Prince George Cougars are in for a heated hockey battle this weekend when they host the Victoria Royals in a two-game set at CN Centre.
The two WHL teams have seen a lot of each other lately – Friday night's game will be the fifth time in their past nine the Cougars and Royals have clashed.
The teams are neck-and-neck in the B.C. Division standings, with second-place Victoria (24-14-1-3) one point ahead of the Cougars (24-14-1-1), who have played two fewer games.
"We've played them four times already so I don't think there are any secrets between the clubs," said Cougars head coach Mark Holick. "They're a bit different team than last year, they're smaller and faster and they get big saves when needed. You've got to be structured and you've got to be disciplined when you're playing these guys."
Tonight (7 p.m. start) the Royals welcome the return of their top player - defenceman Joe Hicketts - and head coach Dave Lowry. Both were gone most of December while they were with Canada's world junior team.
"Joe is a world-class player, obviously. He controls their power play and he probably gets 30 or 35 minutes a night, said Holick. "But if you don't give him time and space there's not a lot he can do. We're aware when he's on the ice he's going to create chances, he's that good of a player, and we have to make sure we limit that."
Winners of six of their last 10 games, the Cougars kept up their hot streak on the road Wednesday night in Kamloops, defeating the Blazers 4-3 in a shootout. Brad Morrison had the only shootout goal as the Cats improved to 9-2-0-0 in their last 11 games away from home. Heading into Wednesday's game, the Blazers had owned the Cougars while playing at home, winning the previous three games this season in Kamloops by a combined score of 20-4.
"It was a big win," the just-turned 19-year-old Morrison told newskamloops.com reporter Gregg Drinnan. "These guys are a tough team to play in their own building. We were aware of that coming in... we've had a couple of rough games here."
"As I was skating down the ice, I looked to see where the goalie was and I noticed he left his five-hole open a little bit. So I decided to make a couple of moves and maybe get his legs to open up and slide it in. Luckily, it went in."
Ty Edmonds gave up a goal to Colin Shirley on the first shot he faced, 1:33 into the game, but responded with a strong effort the rest of the way, especially in overtime, when the Blazers generated four quality scoring chances.
Holick liked how his team controlled the play for much of the game in Kamloops, especially while the teams were at even strength.
Although Shirley got free to score the equalizer in the third period on the power play, the Cougars' penalty kill was effective, allowing just one goal on six chances, including a 5-on-3 disadvantage in the second period.
"Our zone time was good, aside from the penalties," said Holick. "Five-on-five, we spent more time in the offensive zone than we did defending. We had puck support all over the ice. I thought our entries were good and clean."
As they were last season, the Cougars are the league's most penalized team, averaging 19.2 minutes per game. The next closest team in sin-bin time, Lethbridge, is averaging 14.8 minutes per game. The saving grace for the Cougars has been their penalty-killing. They rank second overall, successfully holding off their opponents 83.3 per cent of the time. Kamloops leads the WHL in that department with an 86.0 success rate. The Cats' power play is well down the list in 18th spot, scoring on 17.5 per cent of their chances. Lethbridge is setting the standard at 29.6 per cent.
The Royals rank 12th in average penalty minutes (13.3), have the fourth-best killing percentage at
82.9 per cent and are 12th in power-play success with a 20.2 per cent success rate.
The Royals beat the visiting Tri-City Americans Wednesday night on the strength of a hat trick performance from former Cougar Alex Forsberg. The 20-year-old Forsberg has 17 goals in 41 games and leads the Royals in points with 51, ninth-best in the WHL.
Griffen Outhouse, who played last season for the Cariboo Cougars major midgets, made 38 saves Wednesday to improve his WHL record to 6-2-1-1.
The 18-year-old from Williams Lake now has a 1.99 goals-against average and .935 save percentage with two shutouts. He stoned the Cougars Dec. 18 at CN Centre, making 39 saves in a 2-0 victory, but got pulled early in the second period the following night after allowing four goals on 23 shots and the Cougars rolled to an 8-2 win. With Coleman Vollrath in net in Victoria, the Royals beat the Cougars 6-2 Dec. 27, then lost the rematch the following night 3-2 in a shootout.
The Cougars will be without LW Bartek Bison (upper-body injury, day-to-day), D Max Martin (shoulder surgery, month-to-month) and RW Colby McAuley (serving third of three-game suspension for an illegal hit on Vancouver Giants F Trevor Cox, Jan 2). Victoria has D Scott Walford (lower-body, day-to-day) on its injury list.
