It’s that time of year again in the Western Hockey League and the Prince George Cougars are once again preparing for a familiar foe.
For the third time in three seasons they’re matched with the Portland Winterhawks, this time in a first-round showdown.
Last time the Winterhawks brought their playoff roadshow to CN Centre it didn’t end kindly for the Cougars. Josh Davies ended the longest game in Prince George Cougars’ history when he scored 5:40 into the second overtime period to seal a 2-1 thriller at CN Centre that ended the Cougars’ season in Game 6 of the Western Conference championship.
The winner came seconds after Cougars sniper Borya Valis was denied hero status on a point-blank setup for Zac Funk when Winterhawks defenceman Tyson Jugnauth stuck out his leg to block the shot.
That game still burns in the minds of the Cougars and they would love nothing more than to reverse the trend and finally shake that Portland monkey off their backs.
Riley Heidt, Koehn Ziemmer, Bauer Dumanski and Viliam Kmec got their first taste of WHL playoff experience three years ago when Portland swept them in the first round and there are nine current Cougars who played in that heartbreaker of a series last year against the Winterhawks.
The Cougars (41-21-4-2) wrapped up the regular season fourth in the Western Conference with 88 points, 12 more than the fifth-place Winterhawks (36-228-3-1), and they’re heading into playoffs having won of their last 12 games.
In what will almost certainly by his last junior season, Minnesota Wild draft pick Riley Heidt (31-59-90) established new Prince George Cougar career records for assists (254) and points (370) and his 116 goals is just 12 shy of the new all-time record Ziemmer established this season. The 19-year-old Cougars’ captain want to end his junior career on a high note knowing his team has high expectations.
“A lot guys are never going to be back here and its emotional, we’ve been together a long time as a core group and we’ve nothing to save it for and we’re going to go out there and give it our best,” said Heidt.
“We’ve got home ice and we’re going to use that to our advantage, like we did the whole regular season. They’re a quick team with a lot of speed and we just have to get on their D and play them physical.”
This Cougars have nine players back from last year’s team and Portland has 10 returnees from the team that got to the WHL final that ended in a four-game loss to Moose Jaw.
“What you look back on as player is your experience in playoff games and we have a lot of experience on our team,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb. “Three years ago we didn’t have any. Now we’re a veteran team with playoff experience.
“I like our team, it’s a real good group, and when we’re playing our game we’re a real tough team to beat. We’ve got a lot of good pieces on the team, we arguably have the best goalie in the league (Josh Ravensbergen) and that’s a pretty good start. We’ve got Heidt and Ziemmer, and Kmec on the back end, we’ve got a lot of good pieces heading into playoffs.”
The Winterhawks won all four games against PG in the regular season and the Cougars came away from that series with only two points – one from an overtime loss and one from a shootout. Cougar fans might remember that 5-4 shootout loss Oct. 9 at CN Centre in which the Hawks rallied from a 4-0 deficit with four goals in the third period to force overtime.
Neither team is putting much stock in what happened in regular season, the playoffs are what matters.
“The rivalry is real, because we’ve played them three of the last four years,” said Lamb. “Team-wise and what’s happened (in the regular season) doesn’t mean anything, you’ve got to prepare for the Portland Winterhawks now.
“They haven’t changed the way they play, they’re a rush team, they’re an offensive team and they come at you really hard. They’re going to be a hard opponent for us and we’re going to be a hard opponent for them.”
The season series started with a 3-2 Cougars’ loss Oct 5 in Portland, followed by a 4-3 overtime loss Oct. 8 at CN Centre. In their most recent meeting Dec. 13 in Portland, Winterhawks also beat the Cats 4-1 on the strength of a Josh Zakreski hat trick.
“We’re well-aware that they didn’t have their full lineup for a lot of those games,” said Winterhawks general manager Mike Johnston, who handed over the coaching reins last summer after 13 seasons to longtime assistant Kyle Gustafson.
“I do like that we’ve been pretty consistent all year, our group. Special teams will be important, I would think, in the series, like they always are at playoff time. Injuries play a big part of it as you move along and then I think it’s how much experience you have in the lineup. Some of our older guys, Kyle Chyzowski has 38 games of playoff experience, Ryder Thompson has 38, so that’s good playoff experience hopefully they can lead with.”
Jugnauth, a fourth-round pick of the Seattle Kraken in 2022, is the stud on the Portland blueline and he picked up 13 goals and 76 assists to finish second in team scoring and he led all WHL defencemen with 89 points. D Carter Sotheran, a Philadelphia Flyers’ prospect, put up six goals and 33 points. Thompson (9-14-23) has been a rock of stability as a 20-year-old WHL veteran d-man who missed just two games over the past two seasons. D Max Psenicka, 18, played pro in his native Czechia and was on the world junior team before he came to Portland.
Portland always seems to have plenty of firepower and this year is no different. Chyzowski led the teams in goals (41) and points (105). The 20-year-old doubled his production from the previous year and finished fourth in the WHL scoring race. C Diego Buttazzoni (38-39-77) also produced and Zakreski (39-31-70) averaged more than a point per game, as did RW Alex Weiermair, a native of Los Angeles who joined the ‘Hawks in early December from the University of Denver. He played 41 games (21-25-56). LW Ryan Miller (16-15-31) doubled his point production in his second WHL season and is getting top-line duty. Tyson Yaremko was on a similar trajectory until he went down with a season-ending lower-body injury Dec. 31.
C Joel Plante, 19, came over at midstream from the Nanaimo Clippers and the Winterhawks are well-stocked with promising rookie forwards Jordan Duguay, Carsyn Dyck, Kayd Ruedig, Red Brown and Fort St. James product David Hoy, who made the jump to the WHL this season from Okanagan Hockey Academy.
The Winterhawks went with two rookie goalies and 18-year-old Czechian import Ondrej Stebetak took the bulk of the workload, posting a 23-18-2-1 record with a 3.72 goals-against average and .891 save percentage. Marek Schlenker, a 17-year-old from Okotoks, Alta., went 13-10-1-0 with a 3.70 GAA and .893 save rate.
Ravensbergen has had to deal with the distraction that comes with being a highly-touted prospect for this year’s NHL draft and the 18-year-old has largely lived up to those expectations, comfortably asserting himself as one of the top goalies in the league. He played in 51 of the 68 games this season and had a 3.00 GAA and .901 save percentage and oddly went without a shutout after tying the WHL record for rookies with six last season.
Cooper Michaluk finished with a winning record (9-8-1-1) backing up Ravensbergen and posted a 3.48 GAA and .885 save percentage. Picked up early in the season in a trade from Regina, Michaluk earned his first WHL shut out when he blanked Seattle on a 3-0 win at CN Centre Jan. 4.
Junior hockey teams always gauge success by their ability to develop players to move onto the next level and they certainly did that this season when the right-winger Valis and defenceman Kmec, both undrafted, signed NHL contracts.
Kmec made a big impression after he was invited to the Vegas Golden Knights camp and a signed an entry-level deal in September, while Valis signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs in March. Kmec (18-43-61) was sixth in scoring among WHL defencemen and led all Cougars with a plus-43 rating.
Valis has crafted his defensive skills to become a go-to guy in any situation and his offensive stats (34-46-80) speak for themselves. He finished third in Cougars scoring behind Heidt and Washington Capitals first-rounder Terik Parascak (28-54-82). Parascak’s health is a bit of concern heading into playoffs, having suffered a concussion in Everett that kept him sidelined for the last five games. The 18-year-old right winger is a key element in the Cougars’ attack.
Ziemmer has that ability to score, which is what got him drafted by the Los Angeles Kings in 2023 and his recovery season after a broken-leg setback in November 2023 went extremely well. His 37 goals led the Cougars and he put up 71 points in his last junior season.
The Winterhawks also have to be wary of C Ben Riche (33-41-74), acquired at mid-season in a trade that sent Hunter Laing and first-rounder to Saskatoon. Slowed by an upper-body injury that forced him to miss two weeks in February, he’s one of the league’s fastest skaters and has the skills to create havoc in the offensive zone. Jett Lajoie (14-21-35), Matteo Danis (15-11-26) Lee Shurgot (7-18-25), Aiden Foster (11-9-20) and Evan Groening (5-11-16) provide secondary scoring punch for the Cougars.
“We’ve got some veteran players in the group now and you look at our last run and we just came up short, and we had that bitter taste our mouths coming into this year and we know what it takes to get to the finals now,” said Ziemmer.
“It’s lot of travel obviously (playing Portland) and if you look our season record it’s not how we wanted but we blew those games against them. We were up four in one of them and they came back and won. That’s not going to happen again. We’re a more mature team now going into playoffs and we know what our roles are. We’re going to be the hardest team to play against. We get into the offensive zone and start working their D low, that’s our greatest strength.”
On defence, Carson Carels (6-29-35) is rapidly getting better with age and is showing instincts that will make him a dominant defenceman with his best years still ahead. Carels and Russian import rookie Arseni Anisimov have benefitted from the experience of blueliners Dumanski, Kmec, Alexey Chichkin, and Corbin Vaughan to establish themselves as above-average puck-movers.
“I’m excited, the last couple years have been awesome for this group in the postseason and they haven’t exactly accomplished everything they wanted but it’s been a pretty great few years,” said Vaughan, acquired Dec. 9 in a trade from Regina.
“It’s been a great experience so far, great teammates to have, a lot of fun, and the city of Prince George is totally backing us and that’s probably the most important thing.”
Special teams can win hockey games and while the Cougars have had their struggles on the power play (22.3 per cent, 16th in WHL), their penalty killing has been good all season (79.1 per cent, sixth. Portland’s power play ranks 11th (24.4 per cent) and the Winterhawks rank 17th on the PK (74.7 per cent).
The long distance between cities (1,172 kilometres, 13 hours) means the first two games of the best-of-seven series will be in Prince George this Friday (7 p.m) and Saturday (6 p.m.), with Games 3 and 4 next Tuesday and Wednesday in Portland, and the Winterhawks will also host Game 5 Friday, if necessary. Games 6 and 7 are slotted for CN Centre on Sunday, April 6 and Monday, April 7.
“It’s always as the series goes along it becomes more challenging, like last year in the series, the original trip is not too bad but it’s the ones where you go back and forth that it become a bit taxing,” said Johnston.
“Anytime you’re looking at a 4-5 matchup, most of us would expect that it’s to be a long series, it’s probably going to go six or seven, I would think, with both teams being that close.”
The playoffs actually began last Friday for the Cougars when they lost 6-3 to Victoria for a chance to play for the BC Division title the following night and the Royals wrapped it up a night early to claim the second seed in the Western Conference and a first-round matchup with the Tri-City Americans.
Cougar fans might have preferred to face the Americans, knowing their team has a better track record against Tri-City and it would have also meant a shorter bus ride between the cities than Portland-Prince George. But the Cougars have to be thinking this is their chance for revenge against a team that’s had their number, especially in the playoffs. It’s going to be a close series but this is the Cats’ time to finally exorcize those demons.
Prediction: Cougars in seven
