After posting back-to-back wins for the first time this WHL season, defeating division rivals Vancouver and Kamloops on the road, the Prince George Cougars look to extend the same courtesy this weekend to the Seattle Thunderbirds – the No. 3 ranked Canadian Hockey League team.
Last Friday in Langley, the Cats played a complete game and scored a convincing 5-1 win over the Vancouver Giants, then rode the hot goaltending of Ty Young to hold off the high-octane Kamloops Blazers in their home rink, winning 4-3 on an overtime shot from Koehn Ziemmer.
That evened the Cougars record to 5-5-0-0, good enough for a share of fifth place in the WHL’s Western Conference. The T-birds (8-0-0-0) have yet to lose this season and sit on top of the roost in the West. They’ve obviously picked up where they left off last year on their extended playoff run that got them all the way to the WHL final, which they lost to the Edmonton Oil Kings in a six-game series.
The Cougars are within two points of the Blazers for first place in the B.C. Division and playing Seattle back-to-back could be an indicator of whether the Cats are ready to take that step into the WHL’s upper echelon.
“Winning is winning and you’ve got to get that feeling and that confidence,” said Cougars head coach Mark Lamb. “Going into Vancouver, we played really well there. We had a good weekend of practice and we were going in on a (three-game) losing streak so it was nice to get out of the mud and not only win but playing really good and winning. That gives your team a lot more life, a lot more confidence.”
The Cougars go into the weekend knowing either Young or Tyler Brennan can get the job done in goal. Brennan beat the Giants with 22 saves to earn his second win of the season in four starts since coming back from the New Jersey Devils’ camp. Cougar captain Ethan Samson, a defenceman picked in the sixth round in 2021 by the Philadelphia Flyers, contributed a pair of goals.
Young was kept busy trying to hold off the Blazers, who are building up to host the Memorial Cup next spring, and the 18-year-old Vancouver Canuck pick (fifth round, 2022) made 45 saves to record his second win of the season.
“Everyone has a building they play good in or they score against a certain team, for some reason, and it kind of worked out for those two,” said Lamb. “Brennan plays good in Vancouver and Young plays good in Kamloops.”
Special teams have been good and bad for Prince George but the numbers were impeccable last weekend. Their power play ranks 10th out of 22 teams, connecting at a 23.1 per cent (12 goals on 52 chances) success rate, however they’ve proven vulnerable on the penalty kill, which ranks 20th in the WHL at 72.3 per cent (they’ve allowed 13 goals on 47 chances). Teaching team defence has remained a priority for Lamb in practice this week and he’s seeing encouraging signs. The PK was perfect in both games, shutting down the Giants twice and the Blazers five times, and they were a combined 4-for-7 on the power play in the two games.
“I think our team play is getting better,” said Lamb. “We’re still so young and we’re teaching guys how to kill penalties and lot of guys haven’t done that before, so their were a ton of positives (last) weekend.”
Samson and Hudson Thornton, who scored twice in Kamloops, are making solid contributions driving the offence from their blueline positions, just as they did last season. Thornton has four goals and 10 points in 10 games (fourth in team scoring) and Samson is right behind on the team scoring list with three goals and nine points in just seven games.
“We expect that out of them, they’re a big part for our power play, which has been good all year,” said Lamb. “You pick up a lot of points when you are on the power play but in out 5-on-5 game they’re our leaders back there.”
Thornton scored 14 goals last season in his first season of draft eligibility – more than any other WHL defenceman who hasn’t been drafted. Getting bypassed in the draft this past summer has given him added motivation to focus on all aspects of the game.
“You’ve got to be a good two-way player, which he’s doing,” said Lamb.
Lamb did some line-juggling on the road, knowing he did not have last-change privileges. To try to generate more balanced scoring he switched left wingers, moving Chase Wheatcroft off the top line with Riley Heidt and Ziemmer. Carter MacAdams played with Heidt and Ziemmer, while Wheatcroft formed a line with Ryker Singer and Caden Brown.
“Ziemmer and Heidt play so well together and if you load up one line on the road, they can just check that line, so we tried to balance it out a bit more,” said Lamb. “When you get secondary scoring , which is what happened in Vancouver, that’s what made it a bigger score.”
The T-birds have scored more goals (49) than any other Western Conference team and goalies Thomas Milic and Scott Ratzlaff have combined to allow the least amount of goals (21) in the conference. Ratzlaff sports a 1.61 goals-against average and .930 save percentage through three games and was ranked this week as a ‘B’ prospect on NHL Central Scouting’s preliminary list of players to watch.
Seattle has six players with at least 10 points, including ‘B’ prospect Gracyn Sawchyn (3-9-12). Seventeen-year-old RW Nico Myatovic, a Prince George native, is also producing at nearly a point-per-game pace. Another T-bird forward to watch is 16-year-old WHL rookie Tij Iginla, son of former NHL great Jarome, who has a goal and four assists to show for his first seven games.
“They went to the final last year and they’ve got that winning pedigree,” said Lamb. “They’re an organization that’s built a real foundation around how to win. We’ve got them three times in a row (the teams also play Tuesday in Kent, Wash.) so it’s going to be real tough task and we’re looking forward to it.”
The Cougars have no injuries to report. Seattle F Mekai Sander remains sidelined indefinitely with a lower-body injury.
The game in Seattle Tuesday is the start of a four-game roadtrip that also stops in Portland (Wednesday), Spokane (Friday and Saturday) and Kelowna (Wednesday).
Tickets for the games CN Centre are available on the Tickets North website.
