Jansen Harkins has always taken a pass-first approach to producing offence.
Throughout his Western Hockey League career with the Prince George Cougars he’s been the ultimate assist artist and on Saturday Harkins proved that point with yet another helper that put him into the team record book.
It happened 2:26 into the third period on the power play when he dished the puck through the crease to Kody McDonald for the Cougars’ sixth goal – the fourth point of the night for Harkins in a 6-1 rout of the Kamloops Blazers.
With that point, the 240th of Harkins’s four-year career, he broke the Cougars all-time points record of 239 set last season by Chase Witala. It came on a night when just about everything went the Cougars’ way in their two-game sweep of a Blazer team that began the weekend just three points behind the first-place Cats.
“I think my first goal was against Kamloops, my first point, so it’s pretty cool to get it tonight against them,” said Harkins.
“It’s a pretty special night for me and a big weekend for the team. That’s a pretty competitive team we were playing and to be able to come out of the weekend with two big statement wins for us shows ourselves we can do this and can get some momentum moving forward.”
Harkins tied Witala’s record when he scored the Cougars’ fifth goal late in the second period while falling to the ice after he out-waited Blazer goalie Connor Ingram while dragging the puck across the crease. The Winnipeg Jets prospect started a five-goal second period for the Cougars 54 seconds into the period on a Prince George power play when he set up Colby McAuley in the slot to tie the game 1-1.
“I’ve always thought of myself as a passer/play-maker – I like to find guys and sometimes that's a bit of a problem when I’m looking a bit too hard instead of just taking the shots,” said Harkins. “It’s always fun for me when I can give some guys some open looks and they can bear down and put it in the back of the net.”
Harkins did that with regularity Saturday centring a line with McAuley and Radovan Bondra. McAuley finished with two goals and two assists and Bondra had two assists. That unit was strong on the puck whenever they were on the ice and they were rewarded with chance after chance. It didn’t seem to matter who was sent over the boards for the Cougars, they got the job done.
“Our whole game plan is play hard defensively and get on them on the forecheck and attack them with speed and use our bodies," said Harkins. "Down the lineup, we have a lot of big guys, a lot of fast guys, and we can use that to our advantage if we play good D first.”
Jesse Gabrielle and Nikita Popugaev also scored for the Cougars. Garrett Pilon opened the scoring for Kamloops with the only goal of the first period. The Cougars went 2-for-7 on the power play and held Kamloops scoreless in three opportunities.
The Cougars fired a season-high 57 shots at Ingram. Canada’s world junior team goalie was the only reason the Cougars did not have a lead in the first period.
“It’s the way we played – we put the pucks in the right areas, we were using our speed, we were aggressive and we wanted to be as physical as we could and they did that,” said Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk. “They challenged themselves as a group the other day and the response was really good.”
Brendan Guhle’s presence on the blueline no doubt put some swagger back in the Cougars’ attack and the weekend series vividly exposed what he means to the team. He had a goal and three assists and was a plus-5 in Friday’s 8-4 win, his first game back from an ankle injury which sidelined him for five weeks. Guhle was held off the scoreboard Saturday but deserved the third assist on McAuley’s second goal with his exceptional effort to hold the puck in the offensive zone.
“Guhle means a lot to them,” said Blazers head coach Don Hay. “Nobody can move the puck like he does and skate like he does, that’s where you generate all your offence from, your back end.
“They played well and they deserved both wins and they did a lot of good things. We were under pressure the whole weekend and we have to be better.”
Despite missing 12 games, Guhle felt comfortable in his return to action. He jumped into the rush on numerous occasions and the one time he got caught out of position while on a power play in the third period, McAuley raced back to break up a Nick Chyzowski scoring chance.
“I just came and tried to do what I could to help the team win and we were having fun out there,” said Guhle. “We were prepared and it was a good weekend for us, a good confidence-builder. Looking at the standings here, things are getting pretty tight so we have to keep winning.”
The victory left the Cougars (42-20-3-2) just one win shy of the Prince George franchise record for wins (43), set in 1998 and 2000. The Blazers (38-23-2-4) dropped seven points behind the Cougars. The B.C. Division-leading Cougars remained four points ahead of the surging Kelowna Rockets (40-21-5-0), who overcame a 2-0 deficit Saturday to beat the Tri-City Americans 4-2 in Kelowna. The Rockets have won eight of their last 10 games.
With five games left, the Cougars know they control their own destiny and can still lock up the division and Western Conference regular-season titles. They finished the weekend tied with Everett for top spot in the west, each with 89 points.
“If we play like we did this weekend there’s no problem at all,” said McAuley. “We knew what we had to do before we got into the weekend and went out there and got 14 goals in two games against them.”
LOOSE PUCKS: The Cougars take to the road for their next three games. They’ll play in Portland on Wednesday, then visit Tri-City on Friday and Spokane on Saturday. The season wraps up the following weekend with a home-and-home series against Kamloops… The Rockets make up the game in hand they hold over the Cougars when they play in Victoria on Tuesday… LW Tanner Wishnowski will likely make his Cougar debut on the U.S. trip. Acquired in a trade from the Spokane Chiefs Jan. 10, the 19-year-old former Kelowna Rocket hasn’t played since November when he suffered a concussion… RW Brad Morrison will miss at least another week with an ankle injury he suffered in a fight in the Cougars’ game against Edmonton Feb. 24.
