With a new goaltending tandem in place, the Prince George Cougars took on one of the top teams in the Western Hockey League and suffered their third consecutive loss.
Tuesday night at CN Centre, the Cats gave up a trio of first-period goals to the Calgary Hitmen and eventually fell 5-0. The game was being played while goalie Devon Fordyce was preparing to head home to Cochrane, Alta., to await a possible trade. The Cougars cut ties with the 18-year-old after he struggled badly in the early stages of the season. In four appearances, he posted a goals-against average of 4.29 and had an unflattering save percentage of .871.
"We expected better things [from Fordyce]," said Cougars general manager Dallas Thompson, who traded for former Spokane Chiefs goalie Mac Engel on Monday. "If you look at what happened early here with him, there were some struggles and we just didn't see some of those things working themselves out. We're off to a good start [this season] and there was a guy available and we just thought if we waited any longer, the pool would dry up pretty quickly.
"We wanted to make sure we had a little more experience there," Thompson added. "Especially with our defence being as young as it is we need a guy that has some experience there to kind of push Zarowny."
Brett Zarowny, 17, started Tuesday's game in the Prince George nets and gave up five goals on 33 shots before he was replaced by the 19-year-old Engel late in the second period. The Cats acquired Engel in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2014 WHL bantam draft.
In his Cougars' debut, Engel stopped all 20 shots he faced and looked sharp for a guy who hadn't played in a while. He had been in his hometown of Red Deer after being the odd man out in the Spokane crease. This season, the Chiefs are going with Eric Williams and Garret Hughson.
Engel had a 42-28-3-4 record in 88 career appearances with Spokane.
In Tuesday's game, the Hitmen got two goals from Zane Jones and singles from Brady Brassart, Jaynen Rissling and Jake Virtanen, on a power play. Four of the shots that beat Zarowny were quality ones but he looked weak on the Rissling marker, which was a low wrister from just inside the left point that slid underneath him.
Calgary's Chris Driedger blocked 30 shots for the shutout.
The Hitmen improved to 7-1-1-1, while the Cougars dropped to 5-4-1-0.
The Cougars will be in Kelowna on Thursday to play the Rockets. On Saturday, the Cats will continue the road trip in Spokane, where they'll face off against Engel's former team.
