The Chilliwack Bruins came to CN Centre Saturday carrying a big bucket of White-Out.
And they weren't afraid to use it on the Prince George Cougars to erase memories of the mistakes they made the previous night. In fact, the Bruins came close to blanking the hometown Cats in a 3-1 decision that gave the Bruins a split of the weekend series.
After being victimized seven times in a 7-3 loss to the Cougars Friday, Chilliwack withstood being outshot 47-25 and leaned on goalie Lucas Gore to help salvage the win. Shorthanded goals by Ryan Howse and Roman Horak were daggers that nicked the heart of the Cougars.
"Our power play killed us," said Cougars head coach Dean Clark. "It''s been really good lately, but to give up two shorthanded goals...
"We had lots of chances and either we hit the bar or their goalie made some saves. We did a good job of getting pucks to the net and creating chances but didn't get the puck luck around the net. Every time we had a chance in tight, it either hit a leg or went by."
Down 2-0 to start the third period, the Cougars needed just 27 seconds to get the lead in half. Martin Marincin, the team leader in points, took a pass in the slot from Brock Hirsche and missed the net with his shot, but got to the rebound and dumped it into the open side of the net, his 11th of the season.
The Cougars kept applying the heat and had shots from Spencer Asuchak and Cody Carlson nail posts. With the Bruins barely hanging on and Gore offering up some fat rebounds, the Cats were licking their chops when Chilliwack defenceman Jeff Einhorn, was sent off for interference.
Horak's breakaway goal extinguished that fire. The 19-year-old Czech Republic world junior team centre stole the puck away from Marincin at centre and was off to the races. His backhand deke through the five-hole on Ty Rimmer with 10:22 left to play was nearly identical to Howse's scoring play in the first period. It was all the Bruins needed to sew up the victory.
"We had a pretty strong second period Friday night and that gave the guys something to focus on and the guys were ready to play (Saturday)," said Bruins captain and Prince George native Brandon Manning.
"We knew this was a big game, our third in a row against a good Prince George team and we got the win and that's all that mattered. With the rivalry we've developed with Prince George and the fans getting on us, it's fun. It's disappointing the fans aren't showing up for the Cougars and I guess they have to fix that because it's a bit embarrassing sometimes."
Just 2,176 attended Saturday's game.
Chilliwack drew first blood on a mistake by Marincin. The Cougars had just gone on their first power play and the Bruins dumped in a rolling puck that Marincin mishandled while trying to carry it out in front of the net. Howse stole it and collected his 29th of the season, his second goal in as many games.
The Bruins nailed the crossbar (Horak) and a goalpost (Mike Forsyth) but the Cougars had better scoring chances and a lot more of them in the opening period. Gore was chased after one period Friday but in the rematch the Cats' magic touch around the net vanished, thanks in a big way to Gore, who made his six-foot, 166-pound body look huge.
James Dobrowolski was probably the most frustrated Cat. With workhorse Greg Fraser filling in for the injured Brett Connolly on a line with Dobrowolski and Taylor Stefishen, that unit spent most of its first- and third-period shifts in the Chilliwack end, but came up empty.
"We seemed to get lots of scoring chances, we just didn't bear down around the net and that was frustrating," said Dobrowolski, whose point streak was stopped at seven games. "Our power play won us the game (Friday) with three goals and it was the other way around (Saturday), a couple unlucky bounces and they ended up in our net."
Forsyth scored in the second period, picking off a clearing attempt from Carlson, who was being nailed into the corner boards by Blair Wentworth. Forsyth partially fanned on the shot but it got through Rimmer.
