After seeing their two-goal lead vanish in the third period the Prince George Cougars needed someone to bail them out of the jam the Wenatchee Wild got them into.
Borya Valis was the guy to apply the finishing touch.
He put up his hand as if to say, “Hold my water bottle,” and joined the rush into the Wenatchee end of the rink. Riley Heidt took off along the right wing and dished to Carson Carels cruising across the slot and he backhanded the puck to Valis who dragged it across the crease and while falling tucked it wide around Brendan Gee.
That goal with less than four minutes left, the 34th of the season for the 20-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs prospect, was what the Cougars needed to secure their ninth win in 10 games but they weren’t quite done. Aiden Foster fed the crowd’s craving for a pizza-goal topping into a vacant Wenatchee net to put the capper on a 5-3 decision.
Carels, the Cougars’ exquisite 16-year-old rookie defenceman, came through with the second three-assist game of his young WHL career and was a huge factor in keeping the Cats first in the BC Division heading into the final week of the regular season.
“It felt really good especially when they came back like that, we needed a jump and we got that break there and it went in,” said Carels. “We work on those 3-on-2 entries a lot and I guess it’s just creativity at that point, just go with your nerves and instincts. (Valis) was calling for it so I found him there and it went in, so it was good.”
Carels played seven games last season as a 15-year-old, but not in the playoffs. He knows this time around he will have a major role in determining how deep into the spring postseason the Cougars will go.
“Right now I’m just so much more comfortable and obviously Jimmy (associate coach Playfair) and the whole team’s been such a help with me getting to that point where I’m comfortable like that,” Carels said. “I’m just going to bring my game and the team’s going bring their game and we’ll get as far as we can.
“(Playfair) just pushes us to do the right things and he trains us like NHL defencemen and that’s the best thing he can do. On the bench he just lets us play, gives us our pointers and lets us go to ourselves. He’s the best.”
It was a carbon-copy start for the Cougars, who beat Wenatchee 4-2 on Friday. Just as they did in that game they opened the scoring on the power play on their first shot of the game.
Poster boy Koehn Ziemmer, whose accomplishments as the all-time leading Prince George Cougars goalscorer was featured on a poster passed out to the fans as they entered the building, took a pass from Carels while standing in the left circle and he picked the far corner low on goalie Gee.
It was the team-leading 36th goal for the Cougars’ lucky No. 13 and with that shot he broke Dana Tyrell’s team-record for most power-play goals in a career.
Riley Heidt drew the second assist, the 250th helper of his WHL career and one of four assists in the game for the Cougar captain.
Ziemmer’s goal came six minutes into the game and the Cougars didn’t get another shot until quite some time had lapsed in that opening period. The Wild were all over them, controlling the puck and holding the zone to keep the pressure on goalie Cooper Michaluk. The Wild held a huge territorial advantage when Dawson Seitz finally put a puck behind Michaluk, finishing off a 2-on-1 break with a low shot in under the goalie’s glove to the game 1-1.
The shots were 11-4 in Wenatchee’s favour when 16-year-old Wild defenceman Daniel Vaillant, playing his first WHL game after getting the call from the U18 Calgary Buffaloes, got caught tripping and the Cougars made them pay for it. Heidt spotted Viliam Kmec jumping into the play from his blueline position and fed him a perfect pass in the circle. It was the 18th of the season for Kmec, who’s creeping close to that benchmark 20-goal plateau for defencemen.
That came just before the intermission and it didn’t take long for the Cats to pad their lead.
Cooper Michaluk had just bailed them out with an electrifying glove top to deny Luka Scherbyna after defenceman Alexey Chichkin fell with the puck trying to clear the zone when Matteo Danis laid a routine wrister on Wild goalie Gee that fooled him and deflected in off his trapper.
Three goals on nine shots for a 33.3 per cent scoring rate - quality certainly trumped quantity for the Cougars at that point, 6:39 into the second period.
Evan Friesen made it a 3-2 game with his third goal of the weekend on a rebound 8:15 and four minutes later the Wild captain tipped in a shot from defenceman Eastyn Mannix for his fourth goal of the weekend to knot the score 3-3, but it wasn’t enough for the visitors.
“We kind of built off (Friday), that was a hard game giving up that 2-on-1 that won it and I thought today we had a bit of anger in our game and we played a full 60 but some bounces didn’t go our way,” said Friesen, the 20-year-old Wild captain. “It’s tough coming up short. We’re trying to push to the playoff sand we need every point we can get and this is a tough loss.
“I guess it was luck of the puck for them today but we fought hard, tied the game up and couldn’t get the go-ahead goal and the turnout wasn’t in our favour.”
Michaluk had a lot to do with that. The Cougar goalie came up with timely saves that kept the Wild off the scoresheet, especially when his team was getting outplayed in the early going.
“They’re a tough team to play against and we came out on top so I’m very happy for the guys, we’re sitting in second spot and we control our destiny and it’s all good,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb.
In Langley, the Victoria Royals found their winning edge Saturday, beating the Vancouver Giants 4-3 to remain two points back of the Cougars in the BC Division race. The Royals have four games left, while the Cougars are down to their last two. Victoria plays in Kamloops Tuesday, Kelowna on Wednesday, then heads to Prince George for the season-ending series with the Cougars Friday and Saturday.
Regardless of what happens in Kamloops and Kelowna, the Cougars can wrap up their second-straight BC Division title if they beat the Royals twice in regulation.
“It’s going to be fun,” said Lamb. “It’s going to be two great games that are very meaningful, no different than this one was. They’re all playoff games now and we’re gaining experience all the time.”
Wenatchee lost for the fourth time in 10 days to the Cougars and all the games were close.
The ninth-place Wild (22-35-7-1) are not mathematically eliminated but will have to beat Everett twice on the weekend and have Seattle lose all four of its remaining games.
“Our team’s all beat up, I had a 15-year-old and 16-year-old playing defence for us tonight,” said Wild head coach Don Nachbaur. “We had our top guys sitting out and we played hard and we had ‘em at 3-3 hockey and let them off the hook. We’ve done that a lot this year. But trying to learn how to win, it’s in the future for us. But we worked hard, we competed hard and we were full marks for being where we were with five of six minutes left in the game.”
The Cougars (40-20-4-2) reached the 40-win plateau for the second straight season while improving their home record to 23-4-3-2. Lamb won his 400th WHL game Friday, having also coached the Swift Current Broncos fir seven seasons from 2009-16.
“I don’t put a lot into it, but it is a lot, especially since I’ve been here building the team,” said the 60-year-old Lamb. “It’s been a special three or four years now and I’m very proud of the 400 wins, especially the wins that came with the guys that I came here with.”
LOOSE PUCKS: Cougars winger Terik Parascak missed his third game with an upper-body injury since getting hirt in Everett. Lamb says he'll likely be ready to return for the season finale against Victoria...Cougars left winger Evan Groening returned the lineup after serving a four-game suspension… Tri-City Americans defenceman Terrell Goldsmith of Fort St. James was released from the hospital Thursday in Kennewick, Wash., after he was knocked unconscious when he fell face-first to the ice after getting punched in the face by Seattle Thunderbirds Ashton Cumby during a fight just after the face-off to start the second period of Tuesday’s game. Goldsmith’s helmet popped off during the fight, which exposed his head and he was stretchered off the ice and spent the next two days in the hospital but he’s since returned to his billet home. Tuesday's game was suspended and will be rescheduled…. Prince George native Cameron Schmidt had a goal and two assists for the Giants in Saturday’s loss to the Royals, after a two-goal, one-assist game the previous night in Victoria. He leads the Giants with 39 goals and 76 points in 58 games.
