Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Cougars post crucial win over T-birds

Browne fires winner to gain ground on Seattle in WHL playoff race

Bank shot in the corner pocket.

Ethan Browne won’t be trading in his hockey stick for a pool cue just yet but he was the shark who ran the table at just the right time to deliver the Prince George Cougars their biggest win of the season.

In a game of snakes and ladders Tuesday at CN Centre, Browne’s goal with three minutes left on the clock gave the Cougars a lead to hold on to and they used it to help clinch a 6-4 win over the Seattle Thunderbirds -  the team they have to leapfrog  to make the WHL playoffs.

Browne took advantage of a delayed penalty call and ended an extended bout of pressure in the T-birds’ end with a shot from the corner that kicked off the leg of Seattle defenceman Tyrel Bauer and sailed into the net over the shoulder of goalie Roddy Ross.

Connor Bowie’s empty-netter with 41 seconds left put the cap on to allow the Cougars (15-26-3-4)  to creep within eight points of Seattle (20-23-3-2) for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference playoff race.

“Obviously that feels great, we’re trying to get ahead of them in the standings and that was a key one,” said Browne. “It felt like the 6-on-5 wasn’t ending and I tried to get the puck to the front of the net and it just hit the defenceman’s skate or something.”

 Browne’s late-game heroics were needed after the Cougars blew a 3-0 lead in the second period and fell behind 4-3, five minutes into the final period.

“Obviously we can’t give up a three-goal lead, we have to be better on that, but we kept digging and working hard and came out with the win,” said Browne.

Browne also collected two assists for his first multi-point game of the season. It’s been a trying season for the 19-year-old from Sherwood Park, Alta., who missed 22 games with injuries and an extended Christmas break hiatus when he left the team to recharge his batteries. His break from hockey is starting to pay dividends.

“It’s obviously taken awhile to get back in my groove again but I’m starting to feel myself again, feeling like I used to be like and it feels great,” said Browne.

Tyson Upper, Cole Moberg and Vladislav Mikhalchuk each finished with a goal and an assist for the Cougars and Josh Maser also scored. Cade McNelly, Kelti Jeri-Leon, Conner Bruggen-Cate and Ryan Gottfried were the T-birds’ snipers.

Taylor Gauthier picked up his 11th win of the season on a busy night for both goalies, making 36 saves as his team was outshot 40-39.

The Cougar comeback was needed after Gottfried snuck behind enemy lines and scored on a designed play after the T-birds won an offensive-zone face-off. Payton Mount fed him the puck with not a Cougar in sight as he streaked down the left side.

That gave the T-birds a 4-3 lead on their eighth shot of the period, but it didn’t last long.  Mikhalchuk busted through the blueline with the puck and drew a penalty. On the ensuing power play the 20-year-old native of Minsk, Belarus was set up at the side of the net for hard shot on net and Maser was all alone in front to whack it in. That assist was the sixth point ion three games for Mikhalchuk, who lately is looking like the guy who led the Cougars in scoring last season.  

“It was up and down for both teams, we couldn’t hold down the lead there and that’s when things got sloppy,” said Ross, a sixth-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 2019. “We just have to bear down and we should come back with a good response (in the rematch) tomorrow.

“These are two big games, we’re battling for playoff spots and they’re obviously battling to get ours and I don’t think we realized that. We have to really bear down because this is going to dogfight and we should have known that from the start.”

The Cougars started quickly, scoring on their third shot on goal with 3:23 gone. Ilijah Colina centred the puck for linemate Upper, who dropped it for Mikhalchuk and he let loose a laser in under the glove of Ross.

The Cougars owned the puck through much of the first period and Upper added to the total just before the midway mark.  Craig Armstrong used his speed to catch up to an alley-oop pass from Marco Creta just inside the blueline and got a shot away that kicked off Ross’s stick to Upper and he buried the rebound.

The Cougars’ 19th-ranked power play came through for them early in the second period, with Max Patterson off for charging. Relentless forechecking along the boards by the Cougars set up a one-timed shot from the top of the face-off circle from Moberg. His eighth of the season put the Cats ahead 3-0.

Three goals from a team that struggles to score, with still the better part of two periods left and a zoned-in Gauthier protecting their net? That should have been enough. But nothing has come easy for the Cats this season and the T-birds erased the deficit.

McNelly, in spectacular fashion, triggered the comeback and finally solved Gauthier midway through the second period while the teams were playing 4-on-4. The Seattle defenceman took the puck into the zone, put the brakes on and backed into a counter-clockwise spin to elude Jack Sander and while falling launched a high backhander into the net.

Just like Saturday’s 3-2 loss to the slumping Tri-City Americans, in which they gave up three power-play goals to the visitors, penalties bit the Cougars hard and Seattle’s 21st-ranked power play clicked for a pair of goals 1:17 apart to tie it 3-3.

Jeri-Leon popped in his team-leading 21st of the season after Gauthier mishandled a loose puck behind the net, allowing Owen Williams to feed the puck to the T-birds winger standing just off the post.

Bruggen-Cate then rapped in a ricochet in the slot for the third Seattle goal, with Ethan Samson serving a holding call. Gottfried’s go-ahead goal was gut-check time for the Cougars and they responded with Maser’s key power-play goal to finish 2-for-4 with the extra man.

“I thought we started the game really well, had a bit of a hiccup the last 10 minutes of the second period and then we got things back on track and had our composure and the power play executed really well and gave us an opportunity to win the game,” said Cougars associate coach Jason Smith, who filled in for head coach and general manager Mark Lamb, who was in Las Vegas attending league meetings.

“That’s what’s special about junior hockey, there’s a lot of swings in the game. You get some mistakes and some penalties and maybe some emotional management that needs to be tightened up a little but that’s why it’s a great learning environment for players. It can be three or four games in one game. It had ups and downs where both teams were probably not playing the cleanest level of hockey but there was energy and emotion and that’s what sports is about.”

LOOSE PUCKS: The teams meet again Wednesday at CN Centre. Game time is 7 p.m. It’s the end of a six-game homestand for Prince George… The Cougars hit the road for games Saturday against Vancouver and Sunday against the T-birds… Matthew Rempe tipped a puck past Gauthier into the net with 13.4 seconds left, but the goal was disallowed after it was ruled he made contact with a high stick and the video replay was not conclusive enough to overrule the call… Lamb is expected to be back for Wednesday’s game. Steve O’Rourke, the Cougars’ director of player development, ran the defence with Smith at the helm calling the shots… Just 1,809 spectators took in what was a highly-entertaining game.

 

Tuesday WHL summary

Thunderbirds  4 at Cougars 6

First Period

1. Prince George, Mikhalchuk 6 (Upper, Colina) 3:23

2. Prince George, Upper 8 (Armstrong, Creta) 9:25

Penalties – Mikhalchuk PG (tripping) 5:55, Kubicek Sea (high-sticking) 8:47,

Second Period

3. Prince George, Moberg 8 (Schoettler, Browne) 1:37 (pp)

4. Seattle, McNelly 3, 11:27

5. Seattle, Jeri-Leon 21 (Williams, Rempe) 14:54 (pp)

6. Seattle, Bruggen-Cate 12 (Mount, Kukuca) 17:11 (pp)

Penalties – Patterson Sea (charging) 0:38,Kaddoura, PG (cross-checking) 7:52, Bauer Sea (interference), Upper PG (unsportsmanlike conduct) 10:32, Browne (kneeing) 14:26, Samson PG (holding) 15:56, Mikhalchuk PG (double-slewfooting) 18:29, Patterson Sea (slashing) 19:20.

Third Period

7. Seattle, Gottfried 2 (Mount, Rempe) 5:18

8. Prince George, Maser 21 (Mikhalchuk, Browne) 8:51 (pp)

9. Prince George, Browne 4 (Moberg, Sander) 16:56

10. Prince George, Bowie 10, 19:19 (en)

Penalty – McNelly Sea (holding) 8:40.

Shots on goal by
Seattle  12           13           15           -40

Prince George   13           14           12           -39

Goal – Seattle, Ross (L,16-17-3-2); Prince George, Gauthier (W,11-19-3-4).

Power plays – Sea: 2-6; PG: 2-4,

Referees – Bryan Bourdon, Trevor Nolan; Linesmen: Trevor Beaton, Anthony Maletta.

Attendance – 1,809.

Scratches – D Zach Ashton (lower body, week-to-week), C Kai Uchacz (healthy); Prince George: D Aiden Reeves (healthy), LW Nikita Krivokrasov (knee, week-to-week), LW Davin Griffin (healthy).