The task at hand is clear to the Prince George Cougars.
If they want to finish third in the WHL B.C. Division, which they do, the Cougars have to beat the Kamloops Blazers twice this weekend and not have to claim any overtime.
The season-ending home-and-home series with the Blazers tonight in Kamloops and Saturday night at CN Centre couldn't have been scripted any better by the schedule-makers. Both games are meaningful if the Cougars (36-29-3-2, sixth in Western Conference) keep the Blazers (36-25-5-4, fifth in West) from registering a point. A regulation win tonight would leave the Cats two points behind the Blazers, giving them the chance to finish ahead of Kamloops if they can hold the Blazers without a point Saturday.
Two more regulation wins for the Cougars would mean each team would finish with 81 points. But the Cougars would win the first tiebreaker -- wins. They would have 38 and the Blazers would finish with 36.
Assuming that happens and the Cougars finish third, they would open the playoffs next weekend in Kelowna against the second-place Rockets, who lost 7-4 at home Wednesday to the Victoria Royals. The win over Kelowna gave the Royals (48-16-3-3) their first Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy as WHL regular season champions.
"You want to finish as high as you can and we control our own destiny," said Cougars head coach Mark Holick. "
If the Cougars finish fourth they will play the Seattle Thunderbirds in the first round, starting next Friday in Seattle. The T-birds (43-23-3-0) have won 11 straight and are the hottest team in the WHL right now, having claimed the U.S. Division regular season title.
As division winners, the T-birds and Royals play the wild-card teams (seventh and eighth place) in the first playoff round. The Royals will play the eighth-place team (either Portland, Spokane or Tri-City), while the T-birds would face either Prince George or Kamloops. The Royals are first-overall in the WHL and can wrap up their first regular season title if they gain a single point in their two-game weekend series at home against Everett.
"For us, I don't think we care who we have to play, we're confident going in and it doesn't matter who we play," said Cougars defenceman Joe Carvalho. "As long as we play our game we can beat anybody and we're not afraid to play anyone, whether it's Kelowna, Seattle or even Victoria.
"Even though we are going to finish the sixth or seventh seed it doesn't mean anything once we get into the playoffs. It's open season and anything can happen and we still have confidence in that room that we can make a deep run."
The Cougars and Blazers have each won four games in the season series, three in regulation and one each in overtime. The Blazers won the first four games -- 6-1 on Oct. 28, 5-2 on Nov. 7, 9-1 on Nov. 15 and 4-3 in overtime on Nov. 27, while the Cougars have won the last four -- 7-3 on Nov. 28, 4-3 in OT Jan. 6, 9-4 on Jan. 22, and 6-1 on Jan. 23.
"We've had pretty good games with Kamloops all year, so it should be fun," said Holick.
The Blazers have won seven in a row. The key for the Cougars is finding a way to get pucks past goalie Connor Ingram. He ranks fifth in the league with a 2.67 goals-against average and his .921 save percentage is second only to Landon Bow of Seattle. Ingram has a 33-15-5-4 with five shutouts.
"He's been carrying the mail for them all year," said Holick. "Not to take anything away from their other guys, (Ryan) Rehill, (Matt Needham) (Gage) Quinney, (Collin) Shirley -- their best guys have consistently been their best guys all year long and it starts in goal and Ingram has been their guy since about 15 games into the season. He's been a star in probably 80 or 90 per cent of their games.
"We're going to have to do a good job of not only shutting down their talent but getting to their goalie."
Holick said Ty Edmonds will get the start in net Friday. Edmonds came in to replace Nick McBride last Sunday in Victoria after he gave up three goals on nine shots in less than eight minutes to start the game. The Cougars trailed 4-0 in the second period but scored three goals to make a game of it, eventually losing 4-3 to the Royals.
"Sooner or later our guys have to learn their lesson, we've had a couple shaky starts for awhile now and we have to become a more mature group and be ready to play when the puck drops at 7, not at 8," said Holick.
"We've worked on everything this week (in practice). We had a lot of drills where you couldn't hide and it exposed some strengths and some weaknesses. We tried to cover every situation and we'll get back to work (Friday)."
The Cougars like to play a hard physical game but they still are the most penalized team in the WHL and they can't seem to shake the fact they still take too many lazy or unnecessary penalties which expose a lack of discipline. Against weaker teams, they might get away with it, but there are no weak teams left to play.
"We'll be just fine if we stay out of the box," said Cougars winger Colby McAuley, now playing on aline with Kody McDonald and rookie right winger Adam Kadlec.
"It takes a lot out of the guys who are playing penalty-kill. Some guys are playing a lot more than they need to be and later on in the game it shows when they're tired. Our top players are on PK and they to be having a lot of energy without having to kill penalties all the time.
"Last weekend (against Victoria) we didn't come out ready for the first 20 minutes. The last 40 minutes we played phenomenal hockey we were one goal short. I think if we play hard without taking penalties, we'll be just fine."
Game time Friday is 7 p.m. (CIRX FM 94.3 The Goat).
