What started out as a barnburner of a hockey game Friday turned into a five-alarm fireball.
Unfortunately for the Kamloops Blazers, there was nobody available to douse the flames.
Their usual puckstopper and saviour, Connor Ingram left the game halfway through with a leg injury and without Ingram to worry about, the Prince George Cougars feasted their way to a 9-4 victory.
Colby McAuley led the way with two goals and two assists and Jansen Harkins also scored twice to lead the Cougars to their fourth win in the past five games against their closest geographic WHL rivals.
The Cougars (28-17-1-1) moved within a point of the Victoria Royals for second place in the B.C. Division, while Kamloops dropped to 22-17-4-3.
In a wild second period which produced seven goals, Kamloops pulled even just 24 seconds into the second period. Deven Sideroff gained the puck at the blueline and let go a hard high snapshot from 30 feet out which deflected in off Edmonds' trapper.
The Blazers took the lead at the 6:57 mark. Garrett Pilon converted a three-way passing play with a tap-in into an open net.
But just 12 seconds later, the Cougars won a face-off in the Blazer end and Shane Collins ripped a point shot which trickled in behind Connor Ingram.
Then with the Cougars killing a penalty, Jesse Gabrielle stripped Gage Quinney of the puck deep in enemy territory and fed it over to Brogan O'Brien, who found the net behind Ingram.
Gabrielle was leading a chase for a loose puck in behind the Kamloops net. Ingram went behind the goal line to clear it and as he was returning to his crease just beside the goalpost he made contact with Gabrielle's leg and fell face-first to the ice. Ingram, one of the top goalies in the WHL this season, was unable to continue and left the game, 11:21 into the second period.
Dylan Ferguson came into the game to replace him and the Blazers went to work on the power play with Gabrielle off for goaltender interference.
Twenty-two seconds after play resumed, Quinney slid the puck in past Edmonds through a pile-up of bodies in front of the net to tie it 3-3.
But the Cougars weren't quite done. With 25 seconds left in the period, Brad Morrison forced a turnover to set up a 2-on-1 chance and Harkins scored his second of the game, trapping his own rebound and chipping it past Ferguson from a sharp angle.
Seventeen seconds later, the Cougars gained the zone and Kody McDonald set up linemate McAuley for a tap-in in front and a 5-3 Cougar lead.
The Blazers had an answer for that just 60 seconds into the third period. Colin Shirley fed a perfect pass in the slot to linemate Matt Revel, who shot on the fly to cut the lead in half.
But the fireworks were far from finished.
Chase Witala led a give-and-go rush and got the return pass from Gabrielle for his 28th of the season, 10:28 into the third, and less than a minute later, at 11:11, McAuley shot from the corner and picked the corner high over the shoulder of Ferguson to put the Cats ahead 7-4.
McAuley and defenceman Joel Lakusta, with his first career WHL goal on a power play, capped the scoring.
LOOSE PUCKS: The Cougars have hung a banner in the concourse at CN Centre to allow fans to send their get well wishes to former Cougar captain Brock Hirsche, who was diagnosed last week with testicular cancer. Hirsche, a native of Lethbridge who played 160 games over four seasons with the Cougars from 2009-2013, is in his third season in the CIS at the University of Lethbridge. The six-foot-two, 195-pound centre has two goals and seven points in 19 games with the Pronghorns... Cougars backup goalie Nick McBride was scratched for Friday's game to give him time off to heal a lower-body injury he suffered in a game in Vancouver Dec. 30. The Cougars have called up 16-year-old Connor Dochuk, a listed player from the Canadian Athletic Club triple-A midget team in Edmonton... Earlier in the week, the Cougars signed D Ryan Schoettler, their seventh-round pick in the 2014 WHL bantam draft. Schoettler, 16, plays for the Lloydminster Bandit Pipeline Bobcats in the Alberta triple-A midget league and was a second team all-star at the Mac's tournament in Calgary... One lucky fan who attends tonight's rematch with the Blazers at CN Centre will win a 2016 Nissan Micra. The giveaway is sponsored by Northland Nissan.
