Win and you’re in.
The Prince George Cougars are following that mantra on the final weekend of the Western Hockey League season and so far it’s working.
Their 4-2 win over the Kamloops Blazers, the top team in the B.C. Division, Friday night in front of crowd of 4,617 in Kamloops could not have come at a better time for the Cougars, who desperately need points to clinch their first playoff spot in five seasons.
Jonny Hooker’s high backhand shot 8:23 into the third period gave the Cougars their lead back, after the Blazers scored twice earlier in the period to tie it. The Cougars then had to rely on some stellar goaltending from Ty Young to hold off the Blazers until Caden Brown ended the suspense with an empty-net goal.
The win moved the Cougars (24-28-4-1) into a tie for sixth place in the Western Conference standings with the Vancouver Giants (24-38-5-0), who lost 3-2 to the Kelowna Rockets in overtime Friday in Langley.
“Without question it was our biggest game of the year and our best game of the year,” said Cougars associate coach Josh Dixon. “We’re so proud of the effort of all the guys to really find a way to win. I thought it really showed our character.
“Mark (head coach Lamb) did a great timeout there to regroup the guys after they gave up a 2-0 lead earlier in the third period) and to go right back out and score and hold on to the lead, for the youngest team in the league to hold off Kamloops, who were coming at us with everything they had, on the road and the biggest game on the line, I can’t say enough about how proud we are of the guys.”
The Cougars remain one point ahead of the eighth-place Victoria Royals (23-38-5-1), who pasted the Spokane Chiefs 7-3 Friday in Victoria. That dropped the Chiefs (23-29-4-1) into ninth place, two points behind Prince George/Vancouver and one back of the Royals, who host the Chiefs again on Saturday.THe top eight teams in each conference make the playoffs.
Ty Young stopped 43 of 45 Kamloops shots to earn his sixth win in 14 games as a WHL rookie goaltender. The Blazers outshot the Cougars 45-30, building a 21-9 advantage in the final period.
Sixteen-year-old Riley Heidt opened the scoring 2:28 into the second period with his 21st goal of the season, sprung by a breakaway pass from Koehn Ziemmer. It was the ninth goal Heidt has scored this season against the Blazers, who challenged the play, claiming Heidt was offside. But the replay confirmed it as a good goal and the Blazers were handed a minor penalty for delay of game.
Not long after the penalty expired, Brown stole the puck from a falling Drew Englot in front of the Kamloops net to set up the second Cougar goal. Dylan Garand stopped Brown’s deke attempt and the rebound and Fischer O’Brien had two whacks at the loose puck before it trickled out the other side for Connor Bowie, who made it a 2-0 count with his 15th of the season at 5:11.
The Cougars continued to press in the middle period and limited the Blazers to only a couple of quality chances, one of which came 16 minutes in when Reece Belton broke through on the right side and nailed the goalpost.
Young drew his fifth consecutive start in the Cougars nets, with Tyler Brennan still not 100 per cent after suffering an upper-body injury in a game in Kelowna April 1. The Cougars were outshot 13-2 in the opening period but none of the 13 got behind Young. That was a small victory in itself considering the Cougars had been outscored 10-0 in the first period of the previous three games in Kamloops.
The Cats outshot the Blazers 19-11 in the second period.
“The key was having bit of poise, having your head up, and getting those shots through and not just chipping it in all the time and as a result of getting those pucks to the net we really did a god job of going to the net to generate secondary chances,” Dixon said.
“That was, by far, our best second period of the year.”
Keaton Downtick was a standout on the Cougars’ defence, drawing tough assignments like trying to stop Blazers leading scorer Logan Stankoven, whose 102 points puts him in the top-three in the WHL. Stankoven was held without a point Friday.
Reece Belton got the Blazers on the scoreboard 4:42 into the third when he deflected on a point shot from Kobe Verbicky. Three minutes later, Englot tied the game 2-2 when he banged in a rebound in front after a centring pass from Caden Bankier.
But the Cougars didn’t take long to get the lead back. After that Cougar timeout, Dowhaniuk led the rush and fired a shot from the right wing and the rebound came out for Ryker Singer, whose shot was blocked, but Cougar captain Jonny Hooker got to the loose puck and lifted a high backhander into the net – the 17th goal of the season for the 20-year-old from Winnipeg.
The Cougar survived a couple of close calls later in the period with the Blazers knocking on the door on a power play. Bankier hit the crossbar with his shot and was later denied by Young, who reached back with his glove to stop a puck off the stick of Fraser Minten that was about to slide across the line.
The Cougars will be in Kelowna for their final game of the season Saturday, looking for another win to sew up a playoff spot.
“How exciting to play 67 games and go into our final game and if we win it we’re in,” said Dixon. “That’s exactly the spot you’d like to be in. We’ve done a lot of really good things this year to put ourselves in a position to control our own fate and that’s what we look to do tomorrow, to bottle what we were able to accomplish tonight and have a repeat tomorrow and punch our ticket to the playoffs.”
