How quickly the tables have turned on the Prince George Cougars.
A 7-4 loss Friday night to the Tri-City Americans in Kennewick, Wash., combined with the Kamloops Blazers' 5-1 home ice win Friday over the Kelowna Rockets left the Cougars tied with Blazers, each with 61 points.
But the Cougars (28-35-2-3) are still clinging to third place in the WHL B.C. Division standings, one notch up on the Blazers (27-34-4-3), because they have one more win than Kamloops.
The win for the Americans (29-35-0-3) left them with 61 points, producing a three-team Western Conference deadlock. The Cougars and Blazers have four games left in the season while the Americans have five still to play.
Only the top three teams in each division and two wildcards in each conference make the playoffs.
With four games remaining, including three against Kamloops, the Cougars (28-35-2-3) are once again in danger of missing the postseason for a fourth consecutive season. Their loss to Tri-City was the Cougars' third straight, having started their three-game roadtrip with a 7-4 defeat Wednesday in Kamloops.
The Cougars will try to end their skid tonight in Portland (7 p.m., 94-3 FM, The Goat) against the surging Winterhawks, who had their 11-game unbeaten streak snapped Friday with a 5-3 loss in Spokane
The Cougars started well Friday, building a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from David Soltes and Josh Connolly.
Inspired by a solid outing from goaltender Eric Comrie, who made 36 saves in the game, the Americans responded in the second period with unanswered goals from Ty Comrie, Tyler Sandhu (on a power play) and Maxwell James. Chase Witala brought the Cats back to even terms late in the second, his 35th goal of the season, but Jordan Topping got his stick on a Justin Hamonic point shot to restore the lead for the Americans.
In the third period, Justin Guttierez connected on another deflection and Lucas Nickles also scored, chasing Cougars goalie Ty Edmonds to the bench, replaced by Tavin Grant with the Cougars down 6-3.
Zach Pochiro narrowed the gap to 6-4 on a Cougars' power play for his third point of the game but that's as close as it got. Nickles added an empy-netter to complete the scoring.
Shots were 40-36 in the Cougars' favour. The Cougars went 1-for-8 on the power play while Tri-City was 1-for-4.
