The Prince George Cougars filled their bellies with some hearty home cooking and won four of five games on their latest homestand.
They’ve been kryptonite to opponents in games this season at CN Centre.
The Cats are 17-3-3-2 at home, leading the Western Conference with a .780 winning percentage, and 39 of their 61 points have been locked up on Prince George ice. Only the Everett Silvertips (20-5-1-2, .768 percentage) have racked up more points at home than the Cougars.
The WHL road has not been quite so kind to the Cougars, who now sport an 11-12-0-0 record and .478 winning percentage in away games. They’ll try to get back to the .500 mark tonight (7:05 p.m. start, 94.3 FM The Goat) in Kennewick, Wash., where they’ll meet the Tri-City Americans for the third consecutive game.
The Americans (23-20-4-1, seventh in the Western Conference)) will have no shortage of motivation after falling to the Cougars 4-3 Friday and 5-2 on Saturday.
The Cougars (28-15-3-2) are just one point behind the Victoria Royals for top spot in the BC Division and this is their chance to retake the division lead they’ve held most of the season. A first-place finish at the end of the season guarantees at least the second-highest seed in the conference for the start of playoffs in late-March.
Cougars forwards Riley Heidt and Koehn ZIemmer are each getting close to all-time team records for producing offence and those records could be broken tonight. Heidt tied Mark Morrison’s Prince George/Victoria Cougars franchise record of 235 assists on Saturday.
Ziemmer scored his 119th WHL goal Saturday and is now just one away from tying Chase Wytala’s Prince Geoirge franchise record for most career goals.
The Cougars’ team scoring race is tight one. Heidt and Terek Parascak each have 63 points, Ben Riche has 62 and Borya Valis is right behind with 61. They rank 16th-19th among the WHL point leaders.
Spokane Chiefs winger Andrew Cristall, who had a six-point game Friday in the Chiefs 10-3 win in Everett, leads all WHL pointgetters with 89 in just 38 games. Cristall, acquired in a trade from the Kelowna Rockets just before the deadline, is one point ahead of Medicine Hat Tigers winger Gavin McKenna.
Riche is still sidelined with an upper-body injury suffered in the first period Saturday when he collided at centre ice with Ams defenceman Terrell Goldsmith. Goldsmith was not penalized on the hit but received a two-game suspension from the league that takes effect in tonight’s game.
Cougars D Corbin Vaughan will serve the third of a 10-game suspension for his high hit on Swift Current Broncos F Brendan Birnie on Jan. 28.
The Cougars will be in Kelowna Friday and finish off their three-game tour Saturday in Kamloops.
