KAMLOOPS -If you had watched the Kamloops Blazers lose their first six games of this WHL regular season, you might not have expected them to get their heads above water for a long, long time.
Guess what? The Blazers put a second licking in 10 days on the Prince George Cougars, beating the visitors 5-2 Saturday night at the Sandman Centre. That victory, Kamloops' fifth in a row, improved the Blazers' record to 8-8-0-0.
The Blazers, who beat the visiting Cougars 6-1 on Oct. 28, now have won five straight games and seven of eight. They are in possession of a playoff spot and are just one point behind the Cougars (8-7-1-0), who started the weekend with a 2-1 overtime loss in Everett Friday. The Cougars, who went 5-4-1-0 in their last 10 games, are third in the five-team B.C. Division. At the same time, the Blazers have pulled five points ahead of the cellar-dwelling Vancouver Giants (4-10-3-0), who have lost eight in a row (0-7-1-0).
Last night, after a scoreless first period in which the Blazers held a 13-11 edge in shots, the home boys scored two second-period goals and appeared to take complete control with a goal early in the third period.
"I thought we kind of played in spurts," Kamloops head coach Don Hay said. "First period, I thought we controlled the play but, when you look at it, it was a good road period for Prince George.
"In the second period, we took over . . . we capitalized on our opportunities."
Hay had scratched winger Matt Campese from Friday's 2-1 victory in Vancouver, but had him on the left side with Matt Needham and Deven Sideroff last night. It paid off with a 1-0 lead 14 seconds into the second period when Campese went hard to the left post and redirected a hard pass from Sideroff in behind goaltender Mack Shields, who would finish with 26 saves.
That line figured in the Blazers' second goal, too, as they upped their lead at 16:38 when defenceman Dallas Davidson, the trailer on a 3-on-2 break, took a pass from Sideroff and fired a wrist shot past Shields. When defenceman Patrik Maier pounded a slapshot from the point behind Shields for a 3-0 lead at 2:33 of the third period, it looked like this one was over. But . . .
"In the third," Hay said, "we let our foot off the gas pedal a little bit . . ."
Yes, they did.
Cougars forward Jared Bethune waltzed around Maier on the right wing and went in to beat Kamloops goaltender Connor Ingram at 13:45. Suddenly, the Cougars had hope.
They found even more when Kody McDonald took advantage of a turnover in the Kamloops zone and beat Ingram to cut the deficit to one goal at 15:46. However, left-winger Collin Shirley became the first of the Blazers with 10 goals this season when he counted at 17:20 and added an empty-netter at 19:07.
In the moments before Maier's goal, Ingram had made perhaps his two best stops of the night, stoning forward Jansen Harkins from the lip of the crease and getting a glove on a shot off the left wing by Colby McAuley. Those might have seemed as minutiae at the time, what with the Blazers holding a 2-0 lead that soon would be 3-0. But, after the visitors scored twice, well, those saves were larger than ever. The Cougars fired 19 shots at Ingram in the third period and ended up outshooting the Blazers 37-31.
LOOSE PUCKS: The announced attendance was 4,076, the largest crowd in 10 home games this season. The crowd included about 30 members of the Cougars brand new fan club who rode a bus south for the game.... After missing three games with the flu, Harkins stood out as one of the Cougars' best players Saturday. He'll play for Team WHL in the CHL Canada-Russia Series starting Monday in Kelowna... The Blazers scratched F Erik Miller, F Jesse Zaharichuk, D Cam Reagan and D Nolan Kneen. The Cougars went without G Nick McBride, D Luka Zorko, F Kolby Johnson, D Max Martin (shoulder-surgery) and D Tate Olson (upper-body injury). McBride, acquired earlier in the week from the Prince Albert Raiders, is expected to join his new teammates today in practice.
