After finishing the year with a scintillating December in which they won 10 of 13 games, the Prince George Cougars have been hit-and-miss in January.
The month began with a pair of home-ice losses to the Vancouver Giants, the Cougars' opponents tonight in Vancouver, and the Cats responded with a win in Kamloops, then took the first game of weekend split with the Victoria Royals.
Just when it appeared they were about to leave the Royals in the dust and take aim at the WHL-leading Kelowna Rockets, the Cougars found a way to lose the second game against Victoria, and followed a similar pattern in their home-ice split with Seattle last weekend.
Despite their 3-4-0-0 record in January, the bottom line is the Cougars (26-16-1-1) are still sitting in a lofty perch, tied as of Friday morning with Victoria for second in the entire Western Conference, six points behind the first-place Rockets. (The Rockets and Royals played each other Friday in Victoria).
"I think we just have to get back to the way we were playing. We were playing fast, physical and structured - those are the keys for our success and we have to get back to those three things," said Cougars 20-year-old defenceman Joseph Carvalho.
The Cougars were their own worst enemies in their most recent loss to Seattle on Wednesday, a 4-0 defeat in which they gave up four third-period goals.
Thunderbirds forward Cavin Leth scored Seattle's first goal 13 seconds into the third period. The Cougars failed to counter-attack with much authority and paid the ultimate price with their 16th loss of the season.
"For me, it showed our lack of maturity, being down early on your first (third period) shift and you've got your best players on the ice. We're supposed to have a centre back there to help our defenceman in the corner and we didn't have net-front coverage and it cost us a game," said Cougars head coach Mark Holick. "We still had 19 1/2 minutes to reset and get going and to me it was a lack of maturity that we lost our way and couldn't recover. It was like the world ended after the first shift of the third."
The Cougars took three bench penalties Wednesday for too many men on the ice and Seattle cashed in the third time for their second goal of the game. Those are the kinds of problems teams bent on winning championships have to fix and the Cougars still have 28 games left to work out the bugs before the playoffs begin.
"I'll take the bullet for that," said Holick. "The guys know who's up and obviously there was some miscommunication on the bench, but that's my responsibility as the head coach."
The Cougars also play Tuesday in Kelowna before they're back home for a weekend gig with the Kamloops Blazers.
Based on his play of late, expect Ty Edmonds to start in goal for the Cougars tonight in Vancouver (5 p.m., 99.3 FM The Goat).
Edmonds has drawn the last five starts and has played exceptionally well in most of those games.
The 19-year-old from Winnipeg ranks second in the WHL with a 2.36 goals-against average and is tied with Carter Hart of Everett for the league lead in save percentage (.925).
"Eddy was our best player by a mile (on Wednesday)," said Holick. "I'd like to see how many games we've played with two goals or less of support for him. We have to start giving him some support, he certainly gave us an opportunity to win.
"We have a good group of guys who can score goals, we can score two or three goals in a period if we get to work. I thought we toe-dragged and turned pucks over and got a bit too individual instead of chipping pucks and going into areas."
The Cougars lost to Vancouver at CN Centre 4-1 and 5-3, Dec. 2-3. The Cougars have won all three games this season at Pacific Coliseum, defeating the Giants 3-1 (Oct. 25), 6-5 (Dec. 6) and 6-3 (Dec. 30).
The ninth-place Giants (17-21-3-2) have turned their season around after a terrible start, working at a 7-2-1-0 clip in their last 10 games. They host the fourth-place Everett Silvertips (24-12-2-2) tonight in Vancouver.
Tonight's game will be the last regular season game of Carvalho's career in his old stomping grounds. He grew up 10 minutes from the rink in Burnaby.
"It's always fun for me to play at home and this is the last time there so it's definitely exciting for me and I'm looking forward to it," said Carvalho. "They beat us twice at home and we're not going to forget about that. I'm sure we'll be ready for them."
Carvalho can feel the clock ticking down on his WHL career, a feeling shared by his 20-year-old teammates, Luke Harrison and Chase Witala.
"Me, Chase and Luke were just saying how fast the season is going by - we're just trying to savour every moment before it's gone because we're going to miss it," said Carvalho. "It's an honour and a privilege to play in this league and we're going to soak it all up before it's over."
