Finish line in sight for Cougars
The auditions for next season resume tonight in Victoria.
It’s been a week since the Prince George Cougars were officially eliminated from playoff contention and with just five games left, they are already thinking about next year and how the returning players will apply lessons learned this season to form a more competitive team in 2018-19.
In their six-game homestand which wrapped up Wednesday with a 7-1 loss to the Portland Winterhawks the Cougars (23-364-4, last in Western Conference) took on the role as spoilers and played some of their best games of the season, winning three and losing three.
They beat the B.C. Divisionleading Kelowna Rockets on consecutive nights and earned a split last weekend with the second-place Victoria Royals. The two losses to Portland this week didn’t result in any points in the standings, although the Cougars came within a few minutes of taking the Winterhawks to overtime in a 4-3 loss Tuesday. But, there were several personal highlights for the Cats to celebrate.
Rookie forward Ethan Browne, a 16-year-old from Sherwood Park, Alta., acquired in a trade from Everett that sent Ethan O’Rourke to the Silvertips, scored his first WHL goal in Tuesday’s game. In that same game, Cougars just-turned-18-year-old centre Ilijah Colina had a glorious snipe in the third period against his former Hawks teammates.
Then on Wednesday, two young Cougars, Connor Bowie, 16, and Reid Perepeluk, 17, combined to open the scoring with the only goal the Cats could manage. It was doubly sweet for Bowie, a double-A midget call-up from Fort St. John, coming against the team that traded his rights along with Colina to the Cougars in the Dennis Cholowski trade in January. The puck Bowie shot for his first career WHL goal, wrapped in hockey tape with a felt pen inscription to commemorate the occasion, was waiting for him after the game on the desk of head coach Richard Matvichuk.
Rookie goalie Isaiah DiLaura also shared in the spotlight Wednesday, coming in cold to relieve 16-year-old starter Taylor Gauthier four minutes into the third period. All the 17-year-old Minnesota native did was stop 21 of 22 shots.
Those accomplishments won’t show up in the standings but they are meaningful building blocks for a young Cats team loaded with talent that is showing signs it’s heading for much better results in the coming seasons.
“Our young kids are playing fine, it was a great pass from Reid Perepeluk – two guys who haven’t played a bunch of hockey at this level I thought played really well,” said Matvichuk. “Reid went down (to the junior B Kamloops Storm) and he matured and did the things we asked him to and he played well, and Colina and Browne (Tuesday) night were great with (Vladimir Mikhalchuk), that was a good line for us.
“We don’t look at the (7-1) score. We look at what we’ve got going here, what we’re building and how we’re playing. The mistakes we do make, whether it’s a turnover while being shorthanded or giving up a shorthanded goal you use it as constructive criticism to show our young guys how to counterbalance that. Usually when you make those mistakes against a high-powered team it ends up in the back of your net. It was a 1-1 hockey game until we turned the puck over in the wrong area and basically send the best line in the WHL off to the races and nine out of 10 times they’re going to score that goal.”
The Cougars face the Royals tonight (7:05 p.m.) and Sunday afternoon (2 p.m.) in Victoria, then travel to Kelowna to play the Rockets Wednesday. They will be in Kamloops next Friday night for a home-and-home series with the Blazers which concludes the season the following Saturday at CN Centre.
“It’s not going to get any easier for these next three games – these guys are trying make the push, getting their teams going for the playoffs and it’s a matter of us going in and playing our game, using our kids when we can effectively and looking for the future,” said Matvichuk.
“Every game and every practice is a tryout for these guys and we’re evaluating every day. Our compete level has to stay real high and for us to have a chance to win we’re going to need our older players to be better.”
The Cougars have had three goalies all season and Matvichuk says that auditioning process also applies to them, knowing DiLaura, Gauthier and the 19-year-old Grant are all eligible to return next season.
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Every game and every practice is a tryout for these guys and we’re evaluating every day.
— Richard Matvichuk
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“We haven’t made any decisions on what we’re going to do with goalies next year and they’re all going to play here down the stretch and whoever plays the best hockey is going to play,” said Matvichuk. “All three of them are competing for jobs next year and if was a betting man we’re probably going down to two next year so whoever the best two goalies are, those are the two who are going to stay.”
Matvichuk said 17-year-old Belarusian import forward Pavel Azhgirei, who hasn’t played since Feb. 2 in Brandon, will get a chance to play on the road trip. He has a goal and an assist in 19 games, having started the season with Everett.
“He’s been a warrior for us, he’s a great kid and he kind of got caught in the numbers game as of late but he’ll play at least one, maybe two on this trip,” said Matvichuk.