Tyson Baillie had two goals as the Kelowna Rockets scored four unanswered goals Saturday for a 4-2 win, extending the Prince George Cougars losing streak to four games.
The win gives the Rockets (8-11-2-1) a sweep of the two-game weekend series at CN Centre after beating the Cougars (6-15-0-2) 3-2 Friday. The Rockets have won all three Western Hockey League games against the Cougars this season and have won nine of the last 10
regular-season meetings between the clubs.
Martin Marincin was the Cougars' best defenceman playing with confidence in his best game of the season.
"It was a very tough game," said the 19 year old. "We played a lot of [penalty kill]. It's not very good for the team. The power play this game wasn't very good; we need to score and we need to be a little bit lucky."
Prince George was 0-for-11 on the power play in the two games, while the Rockets scored a pair of goals on 11 chances.
Kelowna capitalized on their second power play of the third period when Baillie scored his second of the game into the open side of Cougars' goalie Drew Owsley's net, giving his team its first lead at 3-2.
After the game Cougars' head coach Dean Clark tried to put a positive vibe into the players.
"Eventually if you work hard, you're going to get the bounces, but they just haven't started coming our way yet," said Clark. "We can't put our heads down. We've just to keep doing the things that we're doing.
"We walked away with no points in a weekend where I thought we played pretty good," Clark added. "It's a little bit dejecting. Our guys played hard. It was obviously again a weekend when we had trouble scoring. We've got to score some goals, obviously we need more than two."
The Cougars held the edge in shots 31-26.
The Rockets put the game away with about five minutes left when Shane McColgan fed a wide open Tyrell Goulbourne who took no time putting the puck behind Owsley.
The Cougars outshot the Rockets 13-4 in the second period, but it was the visitors with the only goal as Zach Franko tied the game at 2-2 with a high floater from the top of the left circle fooled Owsley, sailing over his head and dropping into the net.
In the two-game series, the Rockets fired several shots over the Cougars' net. The Cougars outshot the Rockets 13-4 in the second period.
The Cougars staked out a 2-0 advantage on first-period goals from Spencer Asuchak -- his seventh -- and Caleb Belter with his second on a nice individual effort, firing a quick wrist shot past Rockets' goalie Adam Brown's glove. Mitchell Chapman cut the Cougars' lead to 2-1.
COUGAR NOTES: Charles Inglis had his best games of the season against the Rockets. Prince George dressed seven defenceman Saturday's. Jesse Forsberg and Brock Hirsche missed the game with upper-body injuries, while defenceman Shane Pilling and forward Campbell Elynuik were healthy scratches as the Cougars continue to carry 24 players. Prince George general manager Dallas Thompson had company to watch the two games with the Rockets as Bruno Campese, general manager of the struggling Prince Albert Raiders, took a break from watching the Raiders (5-18-1-1) lose. The Kootenay Ice (14-5-1-2) make their only trip to CN Centre this season Tuesday to play the Cougars at 7 p.m.
