The road to respectability this season for the Prince George Cougars has been anything but smooth.
With one-third of the season now complete, the losses have been piling up on the Cougars, who take an 8-12-1-3 record into Spokane tonight. Only once in 24 games so far this season have the Cougars managed back-to-back wins, and that happened more than a month ago. Ever since they topped the Calgary Hitmen in a shootout Oct. 25, the Cougars have lost eight of nine games, although, by forcing overtime, they did receive points in four of those games.
Wednesday's 6-1 loss to the Medicine Hat Tigers, the top team in the WHL Eastern Conference, did little to raise the hopes the Cougars are about to pull out of their tailspin any time soon. Although the Cats dominated the second period and were only one goal down early in the third, they allowed the Tigers to score four unanswered goals in the final period. It's becoming more and more obvious with each defeat that the Cougars still don't appear to have what it takes to be even a mid-pack contender.
Their goaltending is letting them down, their defence is still too young and lacks a solid puck-moving quarterback (especially now with pointmen Joseph Carvalho and Marc McNulty injured), their power play is abysmal, and (aside from Sunday's 8-7 win in Kamloops) the Cats aren't scoring often enough to win. Just one Cougar -- Chase Witala -- has hit double figures in goals. Only the Lethbridge Hurricanes have allowed more goals (114) than the Cougars (96).
To top it all off, there are no weak sisters within their own conference to pick on, and if the Cougars hope to reverse the trend, they'll have to start showing major improvements in virtually all departments. No better time for that than tonight against the Chiefs in Spokane (7:05 p.m. start, 94.3 FM), where the Cats kick off a two-game roadtrip that also stops Saturday in Everett.
"We're having a lot of defensive breakdowns and that's costing us and even on our power play, which should be a time of momentum, we're giving up [a league-worst eight shorthanded] goals there and that's killing us," said Cougars forward Klarc Wilson. "We're a hardworking team and we just have to believe in ourselves and not think if we're a few goals down we can't come back. We're not the most skilled team but if we're working hard and everyone's giving 100 per cent we're a pretty tough team to play against."
They're now clinging to eighth place in the Western Conference, one point ahead of the Vancouver Giants (8-11-2-1), who have two games in hand.
"I think we're kind of stumped right now as to what's going on but we have to chance it and change it quick because we have a lot of games coming up here," said Cougars assistant captain Alex Forsberg. "You've got to go to the tough areas and bang pucks home. That's a big part of the game that's missing right now."
Coached by Prince George native Don Nachbaur, the Chiefs (14-7-0-0) have cooled off after winning nine of their first 11 games. They're 5-5-0-0 in their last 10 but still rank fourth in the WHL Western Conference standings.
Chefs right winger Mitch Holmberg, the WHL player of the week, has been terrorizing opponents in his 20-year-old season and leads the WHL scoring race with 23 goals and 51 points in 21 games. He'll be looking to exploit a Cougars team that's been allowing 40 shots per game most nights. On way too many occasions the Cougars have used both goalies -- Ty Edmonds and Brett Zarowny -- in the same game.
Cougar winger Brett Roulston is day-to-day with a knee injury, while winger Jari Erricson (concussion) is still at least a few weeks away from recovery.
