From hopeful cheers to brutal tears — that’s how the Prince George Cougars’ season ended Monday night.
The Cougars lost their chance at Game 7 glory with a 4-2 defeat handed to them by the Portland Winterhawks, and there was little anyone could do to console the Cougars and the 6,016 fans leaving the sold-out CN Centre.
The Cougars’ season is over, and the Winterhawks are moving on to the next round, just as they’ve done at the Cougars’ expense three times in the past four years.
Josh Zakreski fired the nail into the coffin for Portland, scoring the winner 10:12 into the third period to guarantee a 4-3 win in the WHL Western Conference quarterfinal series.
The Cougars had their chances to even the score but were stifled by 17-year-old rookie goalie Ondrej Stebetak, who played his best game of the series, making 33 saves to secure his WHL series win.
Diego Buttazzoni sealed the victory with an empty-net goal with nine seconds left.
Monday’s game marked the end of the WHL careers for Cougar overagers Borya Valis, Koehn Ziemmer and Viliam Kmec. There’s also a chance that 19-year-old pro prospects Riley Heidt and Terik Parascak might not return if they make their NHL teams.
So how did it come to this? For Cougars fans, there are no easy answers.
Both teams showcased world-class skill in Monday’s game and throughout what was one of the most entertaining, if not gut-wrenching, playoff series in the Cougars’ 31-season history. After rallying from a 3-1 deficit to tie the series in Game 6, and after losing Game 3 in double overtime, there’s much to be proud of in Cougarville.
But it was hard for the fans to swallow, and much more difficult to accept in a sombre Cougars’ dressing room. Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb faced the media after the game, and it was no doubt one of the toughest series losses to explain in the 60-year-old’s coaching career.
“They played their hearts out all year, that’s what’s so disappointing,” said Lamb. “I’m disappointed too, but I’ve been around some of these guys a long time, and it’s heartbreaking for them. They saw the light, they thought this team could do something, and so did I, and we did. I knew we would get the traction under us, but we just came up a bit short.
“That’s a real good team over there, and this might have been the best game we played. We just expected to do a little bit better, but I’m proud of the guys. That’s the hard thing in sports when you take these lumps. I’m so proud of the team, so proud of where this team’s at right now. We couldn’t say that a few years ago. Now we can say we’re one of the premier franchises in the league. We’ve really got ourselves a lot of respect in this league, which we didn’t have before.”
The Cougars started the third period with their season on the line, trailing by a goal. They soon found a way to tie it. Parascak carried the puck below the goal line and made a perfect pass out into the crease for Lee Shurgot, who buried it behind Stebetak with 5:14 gone in the third. But it obviously wasn’t enough.
Zakreski took a lead feed from Tyson Jugnauth along the left wall and fired a shot over the glove of Ravensbergen for a 3-2 lead — the mortal wound the Cougars could not overcome.
“It was a great pass by Jugs, I never had a lot of room all series, they did a great job taking me away, and I got a little open space and just took it and put it in,” said Zakreski. “I’m just real happy for the boys. I think we’ve kind of been doubted a lot this season. We made a big run last year and everyone saw us as an underdog, but in a big game like Game 7, a lot of guys stepped up tonight.”
Kyle Chyzowski and Alex Weiermair notched the other Portland goals.
The Cougars were outshooting the Winterhawks 18-8 in the second period and were keeping Stebetak the busier goalie when Portland capitalized on its first real good chance of the period. Weiermair led a quick rush into the Cougars’ end and chipped a perfect pass ahead to Chyzowski, who tipped the puck in behind Josh Ravensbergen for a 2-1 Portland lead at the 8:43 mark.
“It was a gutsy effort from both teams, we knew we had to empty the tank, and I’m sure they’re saying the same thing,” said Winterhawks head coach Kyle Gustafson. “Both teams went to a short bench there for a while.
“I can’t say enough about Chyzowski and Weiermair, it’s not easy making those kinds of plays under pressure. PG did a great job pressuring the walls all series, and you’ve got to be able to make plays around it, and that’s where those guys came up big.
“There were times when PG was pushing hard and we hung on to our structure and ate a few pucks, and that seemed to give us a little bit of life. After the adjustment we made after Game 2, there wasn’t a lot of room to make that play, and I give our guys a lot of credit for staying with it.”
The Winterhawks ended the Cougars’ season a year ago in double overtime in Game 6 at CN Centre in the conference final, and two years prior to that, they swept the Cats in a four-game opening round series.
The 20-year-old Chyzowski, a fifth-year Winterhawk, said he’s never had to play a tougher series than the one he went through the past 10 days against the Cougars. He was breathing a sigh of relief that he and the other Portland overagers, Zakreski and defenceman Ryder Thompson, can now extend their WHL careers.
“I tip my cap to Prince George, that was a hell of a series,” said Chyzowski. “Obviously, last year we won in this arena, so we felt confident here, and honestly, the guys just bought in. We came to this rink today and said we’d just work our butts off, and whatever happens, happens.
“That was honestly the best crowd I’ve ever played against for an away game, and we had to find a way to silence them. Obviously, that first goal from Alex was big, and the guys did a good job to limit their chances. When they did, we bounced back, got the momentum, and found a way.”
Down 2-1, the Cougars had two more breakaway chances to try for the equalizer before the second period ended. With two minutes left, right after a reset when Ravensbergen robbed Buttazzoni with a pad save, Heidt turned on the jets and left three Winterhawks in his wake with a slick inside-out stickhandle that sent him in on the Portland goal. He got a good shot away, but Stebetak came up with a scintillating leg save.
A few seconds later, Valis spotted Bauer Dumanski joining the rush up the right wing, and he sent the puck over. Dumanski came within a whisker of chipping the puck in behind Stebetak.
“He’s a young guy still, and if you look at our Game 6 (a 4-1 Cougars win), he probably wanted a couple of those back, and the rebound game he had was quite spectacular,” said Gustafson. “You don’t know what you’re going to get in Game 7. There’s a lot of pressure, a lot of nerves, and I thought Ondrej was the difference tonight.”
The Winterhawks were forced to kill off the game’s only penalty midway through the second period, doing so without trepidation and holding the Cougar snipers without any significant chances.
The Cougars wanted to come out with a physical presence for Game 7 and went to the body right away from the opening puck drop. They built a 5-1 shot advantage in the first six minutes, and their fifth shot had the Winterhawks fishing the puck out of their net.
Heidt took the puck deep and tried a wraparound that Stebetak stopped, but the Cougars captain regained possession at the side of the net and fed a saucer pass through the crease to a waiting Parascak, who rapped it in for his fourth of the playoffs.
The Winterhawks evened it up 12:14 into the period. Weiermair got free behind the Cougar defence on the right side with Carson Carels caught up ice in the neutral zone, and Ryan Miller went tape-to-tape across two lines to spring his linemate on a breakaway. Weiermair, who joined the Winterhawks at midseason from the University of Denver, collected his team-leading sixth of the playoffs, sliding a low shot that went in off Ravensbergen’s skate blade.
This was a breakout series for Carels, a 16-year-old rookie defenceman, and it was the playoff debut of the team’s other 2008-born players, forwards Kayden Lemire and Patrick Sopiarz. The way they, and the other Cougar youngsters, handled the pressure they faced in the series gives Lamb encouragement that the team’s future is in good hands.
“You always think it’s your year until it isn’t,” said Lamb. “When you have a team like ours, we are good enough, and that isn’t going to change. We’ve still got a lot of good players, and we’ve still got a lot of good prospects, and we’re going to keep doing what we do. We’ve done a real good job drafting, and we’ve got players to fill in for (the ones who leave).
“My first year here in the playoffs, we didn’t have any players with experience, and now we’ve got a bunch, and we’ll keep that going.”
The Winterhawks begin their Western Conference semifinal series Friday in Everett against the top-seeded Silvertips, who defeated the Seattle Thunderbirds 1-0 in double overtime in Game 6 in Kent, Wash., to win that series 4-2.
Lukas Kaplan scored the only goal 13:43 into the second overtime period, chipping in a pass from the side from Jaxsin Vaughan, the twin brother of Cougars defenceman Corbin. Everett goalie Raiden LeGall posted a 57-save shutout as the Silvertips were outshot 57-48.
