The Prince George Cougars got swept out of the playoffs, but wow, what a way to end it.
They went down in defeat kicking and screaming in Game 4 of their WHL Western Conference quarterfinal series Wednesday at CN Centre, losing 2-1 to the Portland Winterhawks. But the Cougars’ refusal to go away quietly while giving everything they had trying to send the game into overtime is something their fans will not soon forget.
The youngest team in the WHL has been taking baby steps all season but their showing in the playoffs, despite losing all four games to the Winterhawks, was one giant leap forward in the progression of the Cats and their efforts to give the city a winning team.
Wednesday’s game all came down to a mad flurry with about seven minutes left in the third period with the Cats on the power play, after Winterhawks winger Cross Hanas took a high-sticking penalty. The Cougars were buzzing the net and Taylor Gauthier was ready for it. He was money in the bank for the Winterhawks playing his former team and made three rapid-fire barn-burning saves to preserve his team’s one-goal lead. First he got his body in front of Hudson Thornton’s point shot, then he did the splits to deny Connor Bowie on the rebound. The puck went off Gauthier’s leg, right onto the stick of Craig Armstrong. He let go a wicked one-timer from just outside the crease and somehow Gauthier got his arm in the way to defect the puck away.
“It was close, it hit his arm and trickled wide,” said Armstrong. “It was a close game, we battled really hard. Portland’s a good team, they have good structure and buried their chances and we were right there. We lost every game by one or two goals. I’m very proud of this group, we battled to the end. That was a close series the entire time and that experience will help us build for next year.”
The Cougars came close again on another power play late in the last minute, with Hanas off for flipping the puck over the glass but could not score to keep their season alive.
“We were struggling to get the bounces it seemed this whole series and that was kind of the story of the series right there,” said Bowie.
Portland outshot the Cougars 42-30 and Tyler Brennan did his part in goal to keep the Cougars in the game, but Gauthier was the one under siege in the late stages and he showed why the Winterhawks acquired him in a December trade after 4 ½ seasons with the Cougars.
“Taylor was great tonight,” said Winterhawks head coach and general manager Mike Johnston. “There weren’t many chances either way (in the “Hawks 2-0 win Tuesday) and he wasn’t called upon too many times to make great saves but tonight he was and certainly at the end there he was outstanding.
“Give our team credit for coming out again and getting the lead, I though it forced P.G. to open up a bit and you saw more of a back-and-forth game. We had some really good looks in the second period that we missed and we don’t usually miss on, and anything can happen when you enter a third period like that.”
Despite his team getting swept, Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb was elated to see his players do so well against a stacked team built for a long playoff run. The Winterhawks finished tied for second in the conference with 99 points, 46 more than the sixth-place Cougars’ total.
“To get in the playoffs with a team like that and playing right with them was impressive,” Lamb said. “Even though we lost four games straight - you’ll never hear me say I’m happy after losing four games straight but I am.
“It’s impressive to play against a group like that, a proud organization that’s going for it, and we’re just trying to find our way. I would have been nice to win a game and then you have a little more belief. I don’t think our guys ever didn’t believe once they got there.”
Prince George native Fischer O’Brien, who left the game briefly in the third period after getting checked into the boards, said the Cougars fans, all 1,727 of them, let the team know they were behind them when they made that last-ditch effort to tie the game.
“We almost put one in and the building was really getting into it and we were all excited, but it just didn’t go our way,” said O’Brien. “They’re a lot faster and stronger and they have more experience to, we’d never been in the playoffs and I think that gave them the upper hand. At last now we have some idea of the speed and physicality and this bit of experience will help us. It’s way more physical, everybody’s getting hit every single time, it’s way different.
“I just think we played good every game, we never took one off. We were the underdog and we can be proud of that.”
The game got off to an ominous start for the Cougars. Unable to score in the first period in the previous three games, that slump continued and the Winterhawks outplayed and outskated them by a wide margin and came out of the period with a 2-0 lead.
James Stefan struck first off the rush 8:22 into the game, taking a lateral pass from Gabe Klassen and batting it on the fly into the net just inside the post. The Winterhawks doubled their lead three minutes later. Fourth-line forwards Jonah Bevington and Luke Schelter connected when Bevington centred the puck from a sharp angle as he skated down the left wing and Schelter was there on Tyler Brennan’s doorstep to deflect the puck in.
Already missing leading scorer Riley Heidt, suspended for Wednesday’s game as a result of his kneeing major/game misconduct in Game 3, the Cougars were dealt a crushing blow with three minutes left in the opening period when winger Koehn Ziemmer suffered an apparent shoulder injury when he got checked by Klassen and fell awkwardly at high speed into the end boards.
The Cougars needed something to spark their stagnant offence and captain Jonny Hooker answered the bell, 6:55 into the second period. The play started when Winterhawks centre Jack O’Brien lost his helmet off a face-off in the Portland end and had to leave the ice. Bowie took the puck behind the net and centred it in front for Hooker got his stick on a centring pass into a crowd in front of goalie Taylor Gauthier. Gauthier got a piece of the shot between his legs but it squirted free and slid over the line. ‘Hawks defenceman Marek Alscher fished the puck out of the net and it came out to Hudson Thornton, who joined the play from his point position and whacked a no-doubter unto the net. But it was Hooker’s goal, the first of the playoffs for the 20-year-old left winger.
The Winterhawks and their potent offence came hard at the Cougars trying to retake the momentum and generated some great chances on goal. Brennan was ready for it and made at least six high-quality stops, none better than his pad save to deny Luca Cagnoni with about two minutes left in the second period. That came not long after Gauthier got the knob of his goal stick in the way to take away a sure-goal from Ryker Singer on a cross-ice feed from Armstrong. The just-turned 17-year-old Singer played one of his best games as a Cougar and three times he nailed the iron behind Gauthier.
Losing top-liners Heidt and Ziemmer and having Armstrong suspended for Games 2 and 3 put more onus on the other Cougar forwards to pick up the slack and Lamb said they responded to their increased roles admirably.
“The guys had to play and play hard and our physicality was unbelievable,” said Lamb. “Portland felt us, I’ll tell you that.”
The ‘Hawks wanted to end the series early if for no other reason than to avoid having to make the 14-hour trip again to Prince George if it had gone to a sixth game.
“It feels really good, most of us haven’t played in the playoffs or won a series, so this feels really good,” said Portland centre Tyson Kozak. “I thought they battled hard throughout all four games. They’re a young team and they played really well, I think they’ll be really good for the next couple years.”
The Winterhawks became the first WHL team to advance to the second round of playoffs and will get at least a week to rest up some of their injuries after a tough physical series with the Cougars.
“It was a bit bittersweet that way,” said Bowie who played his last game as a Cougar along with fellow overaged juniors Hooker and Jonas Brondberg. “We’re obviously happy we made the playoffs but on the flipside we dropped the fur games. I thought a lot of those games could have gone the other way, but that’s hockey and that’s playoffs.”
The Cougars made it into the playoffs on second-last day of the season and while they did not win in the playoffs, they proved worthy opponents for the Winterhawks, the hottest team in the WHL in the second half of the season.
“We scratched our way to make it to playoffs, which was huge, first time in five years, so that was huge for our team,” said Armstrong. “Going into summer I think every player is going to get better and our future is bright.”
Now in his 12th season coaching the Winterhawks, Johnston has seen how young players turn postseason jitters into playoff gold in subsequent years and he foresees good things ahead for the Cougars.
“Tonight you saw two teams with a lot of young players that are having their first playoff experience and it was a hard-fought series,” he said. “I think players grow twice as much in the playoffs as they do in the regular season, so playoff experience to me is everything. That happened to me my first year in Portland, we got four games and then the next year we went four rounds. It can happen pretty quick with young guys.
“The Cougars are really deep in talent, for sure, and they’ve got good goaltending. I know Kamloops will be really strong next year but I would say in the B.C. Division they’ll be 1-2 with Kamloops.”
Lamb can’t wait for next year.
“We’ve got everybody coming back and that’s exciting and there’s going to be a lot of competition because there’s a lot of good young guys that nobody’s see yet,” said Lamb. “Our cupboards are full in draft picks and stuff like that, so any type of trades we make, we’re gong to better our team. This was kind of our hump year because we were so young, and I knew that, but we had play our young guys.
“A lot of them didn’t play last year (because of the pandemic) and through some hard times you had to keep playing them and that’s exactly what I did. I didn’t waver because I knew we had to get though this and develop those players.”
WHL playoffs
Western Conference quarterfinal
Prince George Cougars vs. Portland Winterhawks
(Winterhawks win best-of-seven series 4-0)
Wednesday summary
Game 4
Winterhawks 2 at Cougars 1
First Period
1. Portland, Stefan 2 (Klassen) 8:22
2. Portland, Schelter 1 (Bevington, Johnston) 11:51
Penalty – McCleary Por (tripping) 12:07.
Second Period
3. Prince George, Hooker 1 (Bowie, Thornton) 6:55
Penalties – None.
Third Period
No scoring.
Penalties – Hanas Por (high-sticking) 12:25, Hanas Por (delay of game) 18:56.
Shots on goal by
Portland 17 17 8 -42
Prince George 7 11 12 -30
Goal – Portland, Gauthier (W,4-0); Prince George, Brennan (L,0-3).
Power plays – Por: 0-0: PG: 0-3.
Attendance – 1,727.
Referees – Graedy Hamilton Fraser Lawrence; Linesmen: Tyler Garden, Nick Albinati.
