Daniel Gibb is reaching the end of the road with the Prince George Cougars.
The 20-year-old captain of the underachieving Cougars only has nine Western Hockey League regular-season games remaining in his four-year career with his hometown team. Gibb has only played in the post-season once during his stint with the Cougars and unless his current teammates match the effort their captain puts out every night they'll be no playoffs this season.
The Cougars (18-36-2-6) are eight points in arrears of the Everett Silvertips (23-36-2-4) for the eighth, and final, playoff spot in the western conference. Prince George has three games in hand on Everett.
Two of the games will be played tonight, and Tuesday, against the playoff-bound Tri City Americans at CN Centre (7 p.m. starts), before the Cougars embark on a torturous six-game, six-city road trip that'll take them to Seattle, Tri City, Vancouver, Spokane, Kelowna and Kamloops.
Unless the Cougars can steal wins against five playoff-bound teams, Gibb's major junior career will end March 16 when the Kamloops Blazers help the Cats close out the regular season in Prince George. Even with the decision of going pro versus going to school looming, Gibb said he's only concerned with one thing.
"I'll worry about that when the time comes," said Gibb about his future. "Right now we've just got to leave it all on the line and see if we can start getting some wins here. I'll do whatever I can for this team right now."
Gibb is the defenceman the Cougars' coaching staff relies on to play against an opponents' top players, on special teams and to work with the team's younger defencemen (six are under 18) - often double shifting to play alongside a young teammate before joining fellow 20-year-old Dallas Ehrhardt on the blueline.
The workload alone would have many people pointing to it as an excuse for on-ice miscues, but Gibb not only refuses to make excuses, he's his own harshest critic.
"Our best players haven't been our best players, myself included, it's no secret," said Gibb. "I've got to lead better with my play. My play as of late hasn't been [great], that's evident right now and was [in the 4-1 loss to the Blazers Friday] night.
"My game has always been fairly simple," he added. "I didn't make this league trying to be an end-to-end player that's not how I'm going to be successful in this league. I've just got to dumb it down and let the forwards to their thing."
Gibb joined the Cougars for the 2009-10 season and has played in 257 games - he's the only Cat to play in all 63 games this season - collecting six goals and 28 points in his career. This season Gibb has tallied three goals and 10 points.
Unfortunately for Gibb, the only playoff season in 2011 resulted in the Cougars being swept by the Kelowna Rockets in four games.
The Cougars have never reached the .500 mark during Gibb's tenure with the team, finishing the 2009-10 season with a league-worst 28 points (12-56-1-3). The next season showed promise as the Cougars improved to 70 points (33-35-2-2), finishing seventh in the west and 13 overall.
But after producing a 24-46-0-2 record (50 points) in the 2011-12 season the Cougars are in danger of falling below the 24-win mark with a team that, on paper anyway, should be better this season.
Gibb said it's simple to diagnose the Cougars' symptoms - they've extended the holiday season into 2013.
"We've given to other teams," said Gibb. "We're giving them easy goals. We've just got to play our game. It doesn't matter who we're playing we've just got to play a simple, hard game."
It's the game, Gibb said that 15-year-old rookie forward Jansen Harkins, suiting up in his fourth WHL game, played against the Blazers last Friday.
"He was probably our best player," said Gibb. "Our most consistent and he was pretty tenacious around the net. He did all the little things right. He was chipping pucks deep. He was making passes. He was really good. It's a good sign for our future."
Gibb will only have the opportunity to play one more game with Harkins, if the Cougars choose to give their 2012 second overall bantam pick his maximum five games as a 15-year-old.
