The Prince George Cougars would not be denied.
They want to take their place in history as the first Cougars team in 27 years to win a seven-game playoff series and they will get that chance Monday night in Game 7 of the best-of-seven WHL Western Conference quarterfinal series.
They gave themselves that shot after beating the Portland Winterhawks 4-1 in Game 6 Sunday night in the madhouse known as CN Centre, where 6,016 frenzied fans took up every seat and standing-room-only spots to bear witness to two evenly matched teams going hard at it in a gut-wrenching test of exceptional skill, grit and determination.
The score shows a three-goal victory on a hat-trick performance from captain Riley Heidt, but everyone who watched Sunday’s game knows how close it was and how easily it could have swung in Portland’s favour.
With their season hanging in the balance with one period left in a game tied 1-1, the Cougars needed someone to provide the spark and Heidt responded. He carried the puck across the blueline into the right corner of the Portland end and while close to the goal line he let go a backhander that found a sliver on net just inside the near post behind Ondrej Sebetak for the go-ahead goal that brought the Cougars fans out of their seats.
“You can’t take a shift off, especially this time of year and the skill they have is pretty incredible so we’ve got to continue staying above pucks and just keep being aggressive on forechecks and once we score a goal try and limit them for a little bit,” said Heidt.
“Being down 3-1 in a series is super-hard, it gets emotional and I think it’s just taking it game by game, which we’ve been doing,” said Heidt. “You look back at Game 4 (a 5-4 loss in double-overtime) it was a heartbreaker that obviously could have gone either way but we used that as motivation and got them right back in Game 5.
“We’re going to lay it all on the line again tomorrow.”
Not long after Heidt’s second goal, the Winterhawks appeared to have tied it up again at the 8:44 mark. Pointman Ryder Thompson wired a wrist shot from the high slot that sailed into the net with traffic in front of Josh Ravensbergen but the officials ruled Portland centre Kyle Chyzowski interfered with the Cougar goalie while standing inside the blue paint and the goal was disallowed.
Portland came close a couple minutes later when Josh Zakreski missed with his shot on a perfect feed from Chyzowski and on the ensuing rush Koehn Ziemmer fed Ben Riche on a 2-on-1 chance with Borya Valis and Riche buried the puck top shelf into the corner over the shoulder of Stebetak.
Needed two to tie, Portland got their goalie to the bench for the extra skater and came close to scoring a couple times on shots from Zakreski and Diego Buttazzoni, but Ravensbergen was ready for them.
He made 26 saves for the biggest win of his WHL career so far.
The 18-year-old sophomore puckstopper shook off a couple subpar performances in the first two games and has been lights-out pretty much ever since.
“He was our backbone tonight, our first star, he keeps us in it when we were getting hemmed in and he’s able to make save after save and keep us up and keep our group going forward and he fought to the end,” said Heidt.
Heidt put the finish on it and sent caps flying onto the ice with his hat-trick goal, as he broke in with Terik Parascak and managed to avoid Buttazzoni to nail the empty cage.
With the exception of Game 1, which the Cougars won 7-6 in overtime, the team that’s scored first has won every game. Heidt opened the scoring with a low wrister to the far side under Stebetak’s glove. He now has five goals in five games, having missed Game 3 serving out a suspension.
The Cougars were on their second power play of the game when Alex Weiermair got the puck into the Cougars’ end and chipped it in behind the defence for Chyzowski and the WHL’s fourth-leading scorer with 105 points in the regular season knew what to do with it. He dragged the puck wide across the crease and tucked it through Ravensbergen’s legs to tie the game 1-1.
Before the penalty expired, Winterhawks forward Joel Plante was denied by Ravensbergen’s pad on a 2-on-1 chance and not long after that Ravensbergen came up with an even better save to rob Kyle McDonaugh on a breakaway. The 18-year-old goalie got his shoulder in the way of McDonaugh’s labeled drive.
After their goal the Winterhawks kept up relentless pressure for most of the rest of the period and had the Cougars reeling at times. If not for Ravensbergen, Portland easily could have gone into the break with a one- or two-goal lead.
The Winterhawks’ top line of Ryan Miller with Chyzowski and Weiermair was especially effective, dictating the play and generating quality chances, but they were unable to get the go-ahead goal.
“It was a real tough game for us,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb. “It probably wasn’t a 4-1 game, it was probably a 1-0, 2-1 game, but that’s playoff hockey. After it was 1-1, we have pretty good thirds so I was pretty confident we’d come out and play pretty good in the third. Right now there’s not a lot to be said. They’re a veteran group with some playoff experience and now we go into Game 7. The funnest part of hockey is Game 7. That’s what dreams are made of.”
Until Chyzowski’s scored, the Cougars were pretty much playing textbook hockey, making crisp passes, generating chances with forwards and defencemen blocking shots, and keeping the play out of their own zone.
The Cougars set a physical tone early in the first period and had several great scoring chances, as did the Winterhawks, and both goalies were sharp from the get-go. Near the end of the period, Cougars defenceman Corbin Vaughan came within a goalpost of restoring the Prince George lead, just before Hawks forward Weiermair came close to his sixth of the playoffs when his dangerous chance in alone was broken up by Ravensbergen’s poke check.
Defenceman Viliam Kmec got in the way of least five Portland shots and his defence partner Bauer Dumanski was equally effective sacrificing his body to give his goalie a break and that inspired all the Cougars to do the same.
“It was good, we came prepared and did what we told ourselves to do,” said Kmec. “That’s what we have to do, put everything on the line, which is what we did the last two games and we’ll just keep doing that.
“Riley was awesome. He was suspended for one game and he came back even stronger, more determined, and he was really good. We’re buzzing right now and that’s what we have to do. We’re a confident group.”
After allowing 17 goals in the first three games, the Cougars have given up just three in the last two. Portland assistant coach Sven Bartschi says goals have become more difficult to score at either end.
“I think both goaltenders took it to another level the last few games and that’s great, it makes the series real close and that’s where we’re at right now,” said Bartschi. “For our side I’m real proud with how (Stebetak) has been playing. He’s standing on his head and doing what he can to make the team win.”
Bartschi says his team just has to keep doing what they did Sunday to get back on the right end of the scoreboard.
“The big thing is we played well tonight and we just have to come with the same demeanour (Monday) and play just like we did tonight,” said Bartschi. “We have to make sure we bear down on our chances and keep hovering around the net, be hard. I thought we played a strong game and that all we can do.
“It’s been a great series, I thought we came out strong early in the games and we’ve continued to play well,” he said. “They have their high-octane offensive group over there and they don’t need many chances and you can’t give them much.
“They did a good job blocking shots and give them credit, they are a team like that, they lay down and block a lot of shots and make it easier for their goaltender. It’s important, knowing we played a good game and we’re getting ourselves ready for Game 7.”
The last time the Cougars played in a Game 6 they lost the Western Conference final in Cranbrook to the Kootenay Ice, and they haven’t been in a Game 7 situation in front of fans on home ice since 1998, when they rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to defeat the Kamloops Blazers. The Cats would love nothing better than to complete a similar series comeback on Monday.
Game 6 sold out in a few hours and the Cougars are feeling the love from their fans in a big way.
“It helps our team so much I think, just getting that atmosphere behind us going into the third (period) when we were tied up, to get that little bit extra boost helps a lot,” said Heidt. “It just shows the character in our group to keep coming, we’ve put it all on the line for the last six and there’s not a better place to do it for Game 7 in our rink.”
LOOSE PUCKS: Tickets went on sale immediately for Game 7 on the Tickets North website. There will be about 100 tickets available at the CN Centre box office which opens Monday at noon … The Prince Albert Raiders have forced a Game 7 in their opening-round series against the Edmonton Oil Kings Tuesday in Prince Albert. Lukas Dragicevic scored with 53 seconds left in the third period to give the East Division-champion Raiders a 4-3 victory over the Oil Kings Sunday afternoon in Edmonton.
