How sweet it is to be a Prince George Cougar.
The Cats are back on top of the BC Division and they earned the right to host the first round of playoffs when they rallied with three unanswered goals in the third period to defeat the Wenatchee Wild 4-2 Friday night at CN Centre.
Winners of eight of the past nine games, the Cougars got some help in Victoria, where the Vancouver Giants beat the Royals 3-1, and that allowed the Cats to leapfrog Victoria into the division lead.
“The desperate mindset we had in the third is the way we have to start more, but at the end of the day it’s massive to get these points here with Vic losing,” said Cougars captain Riley Heidt, whose power-play goal 14:47 into the third period was the gamewinner.
“We didn’t have the start we wanted, a full week at home sometimes does that to you. But we found a way obviously within the group at the end of the day to get ‘er done. That’s the goal for every hockey team going into the playoffs, trying to reach your full potential, and we still have lot more to work on, but we’re sure going in the right direction finding ways to get those wins.”
The Cougars’ power play came through when Heidt crashed the net after defenceman Viliam Kmec put the puck on net and it kicked off Brendan Gee’s pad with a pile of bodies in front and Heidt jammed it in. Borya Valis had drawn the penalty when he kept his feet moving and Wild defenceman Lukas McCloskey got caught holding. That came not long after the Cougars dodged a bullet when the officials missed a too many men call at the Prince George bench, which did not go unnoticed by Wild head coach Don Nachbaur.
“I thought we played hard, we certainly didn’t have a good third period and we got outcompeted, that team came at us hard and we had no response,” said Nachbaur. “I thought we didn’t skate, which we did in the first two periods and the end result is the penalty, and you can’t take a penalty like that against a good team. They made us pay the price.
“Our goalie was real good tonight, just too many point-blank Grade-A chances against. I’m proud of how the guys played but you’d like to come out of these games with a point or two and we let that get away in the third, we just weren’t ready.”
Joshua Ravensbergen made 25 saves to post his 33rd win, tied for the league lead with Spokane’s Dawson Cowan. The Cougars outshot the Wild 31-27.
The Wild got goalie Gee to the bench pushing for the tying goal but Heidt ruled that out when he stole the puck from Dawson Seitz and set up Koehn Ziemmer for an empty-netter.
After a stagnant second period the Cougars were a much different bunch in the third period and they came out with the intensity Cougar fans in the crowd of 4,592 have come to expect from a team with just four regulation losses on home ice this season.
Ziemmer produced the equalizer, blasting in a goalmouth pass from Valis 6:31 into the third. Heidt started the play when he tracked down a loose puck after a Wild defenceman fell behind the net and he shovelled it out for Valis at the side of the net.
Kmec missed most of the second period in the penalty box sitting out an instigator minor, fighting major and misconduct when he stepped in his after defence partner Bauer Dumanski got roughed up into the end boards with a hit from behind from Deagan McMillan. The 20-year-old Cougar defenceman had plenty of energy left for the third period and his teammates fed off of it.
“It was all about the energy, it wasn’t there in the second period and we were just strong mentally and we brought it in the third,” said Kmec. “We’ve done that this season, coming back (from deficits) and it just builds character, but we also can’t afford to play periods like the second in the playoffs. We’ve got to clean it up.”
The Wild got both their goals from Evan Friesen.
Wenatchee certainly looked like the hungrier team in the second period, controlling much of the play and generating plenty of offensive zone time and their efforts were rewarded when one of their 17 shots that period found the Cougar net.
That came off a 2-on-1 rush and Friesen converted it for his second goal of the game. He buried the pass from Shaun Rios with a high-wrister in over Ravenbergen’s shoulder. Friesen’s team-leading 30th goal and 58th point gave his team a 2-1 lead.
The Cougars scored on the first shot of the game, 40 seconds in. Dumanski left his point position and took the puck in deep and out of the corner he fed Matteo Danis in the slot for a down-on-one-knee one-timer, the 14th of the season for the Cougar centre.
The Wild didn’t have much going offensively until they got on the power play late in the opening period. They evened the count on shot from the circle that produced a rebound and open net for Friesen, the Wild’s leading scorer, and he batted in the loose puck.
The win was the Cougars’ third in nine days over the Wild. They beat them twice in regulation time last week in Wenatchee.
“It’s been the exact same story in all three games, so we’ve got to correct that going into the game (Saturday), said Nachbaur.
The Wild fell three points out of a playoff position behind the Seattle Thunderbirds for eighth place in the Western Conference after the T-birds beat Tri-City 6-3 Friday. Wenatchee has three games left, including the rematch with the Cougars Saturday (6 p.m.). Seattle still has five games to play.
The Royals play in Vancouver on Saturday, Kamloops on Tuesday and Kelowna on Wednesday before they hit Prince George for the season-ending two-game set next Friday and Saturday. The Cougars are 22-4-3-2 on home ice. The Cougars (39-20-4-2) are two points ahead of the Royals (36-17-3-7) who hold two games in hand over Prince George.
“It’s awesome (to be back in first place), I think we deserve it and it’s going to be all about those last two games with Victoria,” said Kmec. “I think this is the hardest rink to play in in the Western Hockey League when you’re on the road. Our fans are really great and they obviously support us. The attendance has been awesome this season and I’m really happy the fans are coming to the rink.
“It’s six hours from the closest city and that’s a big factor and the atmosphere here gets pretty loud. I’d be pretty scared to play here.”
LOOSE PUCKS: Prince George native Cameron Schmidt scored his 37th and 38 the goals to stake the Giants to a 2-0 lead and they added an empty netter to seal their win over the Royals, who played their last home game of the season in front of a crowd of 6,520… The Cougars were without one of their top forwards, Washington Capitals first-rounder Terik Parascak. He was involved in a scary hit that knocked him out of the game last Saturday in Everett in a collision with Silvertips forward Jesse Heslop. Heslop was assessed a interference major and game misconduct but after reviewing the play the league determined no suspension was warranted… The Cougars dressed seven defencemen as Fraser Leonard drew into the lineup, the 40th WHL game for the rookie 18-year-old from Cochrane, Alta… In a pre-game ceremony, Cougars owners John Pateman, Ernest Ouellet and Eric Brewer paid tribute to the team’s three overagers – Kmec, Ziemmer and Valis… Injuries have plagued the Wild all season and Gee has been carrying the load in goal with 19-year-old Alex Garrett out the past two weeks with a concussion. Sixteen-year-old Dutch import Carter Leyerzapf, who has played just five games this season, all with the Calgary Edge School U17s, served as Gee’s emergency backup… The Cougars will open the playoffs at home for the third consecutive season, a a feat never before achieved in the team’s 31-year Prince George history. They’ll play either Tri-City, Spokane or Vancouver in the first round.
