Rolling down the highway fueled by their four-game winning streak, the Prince George Cougars are on their way to Kamloops to try to do what they did last Saturday - beat the Blazers in their own barn.
That would be a major feat to replicate the success the Cougars had on their most recent WHL roadtrip when they followed up a one-goal victory over the Kelowna Rockets with a 3-2 win over the WHL B.C. Division-leading Blazers.
But there’s no question spirits will be running high on the Cougars after they pulled off a remarkable come-from-behind 7-3 victory over the Vancouver Giants Wednesday night at CN Centre. Led by Koehn Ziemmer’s team-record tying six-point effort, the Cougars completed the sweep after beating the Giants 5-3 on Tuesday.
For the first time this season since they beat Victoria in five straight regular season games in October, there’s a winning attitude that seems to be taking hold in the Cougars. They have a chance to head into the Christmas break on a six-game winning streak if they can knock off the Blazers and gain another two points in Langley on Saturday when they meet the Giants again.
“You don’t want to get too far ahead yourselves, but this is a good hockey team and it’s a real young hockey team and the patience has got to be there, but there’s a lot of special things going on in there,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb.
“It’s a process, and we do a lot of good things, even when we lose games. It gets frustrating but it’s about keeping this team going in the right direction. We make some mistakes, but they’re youth mistakes and they learn from it. We’re still not out of anything yet, but they’re gaining experience and having a lot of fun doing it right now.”
Ziemmer tied the Cougar record for most points a game, matching Dan Baum’s point output when he had a goal and five assists in a 9-8 overtime win over Tri-City in March 2003.
The 17-year-old Ziemmer sparked the Cougar offence to life in the second half of the game Wednesday when defenceman Hudson Thornton cruised in from the point undetected and blasted in a puck fed to him by Ziemmer. All seven Cougar goals came after the 10-minute mark of the second period and either Ziemmer or his linemates, centre Riley Heidt and left winger Craig Armstrong, had a hand in all of them.
Lamb figured it was only a matter of time before Ziemmer was rewarded for his work ethic on the ice.
“When you break down the stats, and that’s what you do as a coach, he’s been leading our team in scoring chances all year and they haven’t been going in,” said Lamb. “So you’ve got to stick with it… and it was just a matter of time.
“The six-point night is very special and you ride those, but this kid is going to score a lot of goals in this league. After he got couple of points you could really see the juice in him. You get that life and when you start scoring goals like that you’re not tired, you just want more ice time. We had a power play at the end and you look down the bench and he’s dying to get out there for that seventh point.”
Ziemmer, picked by the Cougars overall in the 2019 bantam draft, now has seven goals and 12 assists for 19 points in 26 games and his six-point night shot him into a tie for the team scoring lead with Armstrong (9-10-19), who collected two goals and an assist, and Thornton (6-13-19), who had his second three-point game of the season with a goal and two assists. Defenceman Keaton Dohaniuk, drafted just ahead of Ziemmer, third overall in 2019, doubled his season point production with two assists Wednesday.
The Blazers will be without starting goalie Dylan Garand and leading scorer Logan Stankoven who are in Calgary getting ready to play for Canada at the IIHF world junior championship. Blazer defenceman Marko Stracha is attending Team Slovakia world junior camp. Centre Dylan Sydor is listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
Cougars defenceman Viliam Kmec is also in the Slovakian camp trying out for the team. Goalie Tyler Brennan is their only injured Cougar, but he’s close to returning from an ankle injury.
Seventeen-year-old rookie goalie Ty Young has filled in for Brennan the past week and played well Wednesday in his first WHL start of the season, making 29 saves against the Giants for his first career major junior win. The Coaldale, Alta., native was sent by the Cougars in October to the Calgary Canucks of the Alberta Junior Hockey League and has been getting the bulk of the playing time for his junior A team, facing nearly 40 shots per game. It’s worked out well for both parties – Young needs to play as much as he can and the Cougars need him to develop for next season, when Taylor Gauthier has graduated the junior ranks.
“It’s all about development and I’ve said it many times, the strength of this team is goaltending,” said Lamb. “You have Gauthier, Brennan and now we’ve got Young. We’re very lucky. We got him into a spot where he can get some games in and a lot of shots and he’s getting a lot of respect from a lot of people. I like his compete and how he competes in practice and you throw that into a game and he plays the same way.”
After the Kelowna game, the Cougars (14-12-0-0) will head back to their hometowns and have nine days between games. They return to action Dec. 30 and 31 at CN Centre against the Everett Silvertips. Everett (19-5-2-1) currently leads the Western Conference. The Cougars will give their fans one other home game to attend during the holiday season when they host Kamloops on New Year’s Eve.
