The Prince George Cougars offered glimpses of great things to come in their WHL season-opener Saturday in Kamloops but it wasn’t enough to hold off the defending champs of the B.C. Division.
The Kamloops Blazers know how to win. They proved that 41 times last season and leaned on that experience to come from behind and defeat the Cougars 5-4.
Connor Zary and Logan Stankoven scored unanswered goals in the third period which gave the Blazers what they needed to put the wraps on their second win of the season.
Stankoven’s second of the game 10:09 into the third period came seven minutes after the Blazers had tied it. Reece Belton intercepted a clearing attempt by Cougars defenceman Jack Sander and the Blazers got the puck to Stankoven in the slot and he filed away a shot that beat Taylor Gauthier to the stick side.
Zary’s equalizer came while shorthanded. The Blazers captain broke through the defence on a breakaway and finished with a high shot, seconds after Cougars rookie Riley Heidt had stepped out of the penalty box.
Icing a lineup that included six rookies four playing in their first WHL game, the Cougar kids and the offence they supplied were a big part of the story. They helped carve out a 3-1 lead after one period and the Cats were still leading 4-3 after two, but could not salt it away.
Veteran centre Ethan Browne got the Cougars going, firing a low wrist shot in from the face-off circle with a power-play goal, 10 minutes after Stankoven opened the scoring.
The Prince George power play struck again 17:47 into the first period. Freshman Kyren Gronick, in his WHL debut, got his stick on a left wing feed from Sander and the high carom went in over the shoulder of goalie Dylan Garand. That puck was a keeper for Gronick, the Cougars second-round pick, 26th overall, in the 2019 bantam draft.
In the dying seconds of the period, left winger Carter MacAdams, a fourth-rounder in 2019, got himself free in the slot and rookie Fischer O’Brien, a Prince George native acquired in an off-season trade, spotted him after taking the drop pass from Brendan Boyle. The quick shot from MacAdams found the net just 1.2 seconds before the buzzer.
Caeden Bankier’s slick backhander from a sharp angle made it a one-goal game two minutes into the second period and the Blazers kept up the momentum and had the Cougars penned in their own zone for much of the period. Josh Pillar made it a 3-3 on another odd-man rush when he shot from the right side and put the puck in off the glove of Gauthier.
But the Cougars had an answer for that and 16-year-old Koehn Ziemmer did the deed, scoring his first in his third career WHL game after linemate Craig Armstrong sprung him free on a 2-on-1 break. Logan Barros did his best to rough up Ziemmer as he broke in through the slot but the Mayerthorpe, Alta., native chopped a backhand-forehand deke that skipped through the legs of Garand to restore the Cougars’ lead with 15:03 gone in the second.
The Cougars fed off the energy of their early success and the effort was there all game, but they couldn’t contend with the Blazers’ late-game push.
Heidt, who celebrated his 16th birthday on Thursday, took a regular shift on a line with Jonny Hooker and Blake Eastman and the second overall pick from the 2020 draft class looked like he belongs in the league. Coach Mark Lamb had Heidt killing penalties and taking power-play faceoffs and while he didn’t get on the scoresheet he certainly didn’t hurt his team’s chances, using his quick feet and anticipation to create at least a couple turnovers.
The Blazers outshot the Cougars 32-22.
The Cats will travel to Kelowna to face the Victoria Royals Monday night. Game time is 7:05 p.m.
