Blades’ Makarov blanks Cougars
A night after leading Russia to the Subway Super Series championship Saskatoon Blades’ goaltender Andrey Makarov shutdown the Prince George Cougars by a 4-0 margin.
The Blades (9-10-0-1) needed only 22 seconds and a stellar 42-save effort from Makarov to send the Cougars (7-11-1-2) to their sixth consecutive loss of the Western Hockey League season.
Makarov led Russia to a 5-2 win over the WHL all-stars Thursday in Victoria after blanking the WHL side Wednesday in Vancouver before getting beaten three times in a 1-0 shootout win by the WHL team. The 19-year-old didn’t have many tough saves to make Friday in front of 1,850 fans at CN Centre but came up with a couple big saves in the third period including one off Alex Forsberg in the slot.
The Cougars dominated the first 10 minutes of the game but couldn’t beat Makarov.
The turning point came when Cougars forward Caleb Belter was assessed a pair of five-minute majors (boarding and fighting) and a game misconduct for knocking Blades defenceman Matthew Pufahl into the boards. Pufahl left the game with a arm injury. On the resulting four-on-four play – Lukas Sutter came to his teammate’s defence and was assessed a fighting major, instigating minor and 10-minute misconduct – the Blades scored a pair of goals in 22 seconds from Brenden Walker and Matej Stransky to go up 2-0.
Stransky’s goal came as the Cougars were caught standing around, concerned over the health of teammate Rinalds Rosinskis who was down on the ice after blocking a shot with his left leg. Rosinskis left the game and didn’t return.
Mac Engel made a highlight reel save off Walker late in the second to keep his Cougars teammates within striking distance heading to the final 20 minutes.
But despite four power-play opportunities in the game the Cougars were unable to beat Makarov. Prince George has a league-worst 22nd power play unit.
The Blades put the game away when Josh Nicholls beat Engel for his team leading 19th goal of the season on a breakaway before Adam Kambeitz made it 4-0 with a power-play goal.
Prince George out shot the Blades 42-36 with each period ending 14-12 in favour of the home side.
The Cougars travelled to Kamloops after the game where they play the Blazers tonight at the Interior Savings Centre.
• Earlier this week the Red Deer Rebels relieved head coach Jesse Wallin of his duties as Brent Sutter added interim head coach to his resume with the club he owns.
Sutter also sent former Blade and Cougar, Charles Inglis home to Winnipeg to await a trade.
The 20-year-old led the Rebels in scoring with 14 points in 21 games.