COUGARS SET FOR GIANT TEST
If the Prince George Cougars are looking for a measuring stick to determine how close they are to being among the best in the WHL’s B.C. Division, their next two games against the Vancouver Giants could provide that gauge.
The Giants are off to a roaring 4-1-0-0 start, their latest victims being the Kelowna Rockets, who lost 5-0 to the Giants Wednesday in Kelowna.
Now into the third week of the season, the Giants are tied for first in the division with the Victoria Royals (4-0-0-0) and rank fourth overall in the WHL but the youthfully exuberant Cougars (2-2-0-1), one of the youngest teams in the WHL, are only three points behind.
The Cougars learned this week their sophomore goalie Taylor Gauthier is ranked by NHL Central Scouting as a B prospect for next year’s draft, considered likely to be chosen in the second or third-round. The 17-year-old from Calgary has played in all five games for the Cougars so far, compiling a 2.95 goals-against average and .899 save percentage.
The Cougars picked Gauthier 10th overall in the 2016 WHL bantam draft. In August, he played for Canada in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup international tournament and was flawless in a relief appearance in the gold medal game against Sweden, making 16 saves to earn the win and the championship.
The Giants have been solid in net. Trent Miner made 21 saves for his first WHL shutout Wednesday in Kelowna. The 17-year-old from Brandon played nine games as a rookie for the Giants last season. David Tendeck, 19, an Arizona Coyotes sixth-round pick in 2018, has played four games this year and sports a 1.98 goals-against average and .927 save percentage.
The Giants have been getting steady production from James Malm, a Valley West Hawks major midget graduate from Langley, now in his third season with the Giants. He has a league-leading seven goals as well as an assist in eight games this season, coming off a 19-goal, 66-point season last year.
Brayden Watts (2-2-4), Davis Koch (1-3-4) and defenceman Dylan Plouffe (0-4-4) are next in line on the Giants’ list of scoring leaders. Cougars centre Ethan Browne (2-2-4) and defenceman Ryan Schoettler (2-2-4) lead the Cougars in scoring, each having played five games.
The Giants have had numerous injuries to deal with, mostly to their defence, losing Matt Barbaris, Bailey Dhaliwal, and Joel Sexsmith. All are out with upper-body injuries. Barbaris is listed as indefinite, Dhaliwal is sidelined for a month and Sexsmith is day-to-day. They also lost forward Aiden Barfoot with an upper-body ache. To take up the slack on the blueline, the Giants picked up Ryan Pouliot on waivers from Swift Current and acquired Ty Ettinger in a trade from Brandon.
The Cougars will be without 19-year-old D Cameron MacPhee (upper body) and 16-year-old D Tyson Phare (upper body).
The Cats head out on a Central Division tour next week with games Friday at Medicine Hat, Saturday at Lethbridge and Sunday at Kootenay.
LOOSE PUCKS: Former Cougars defenceman Dennis Cholowski scored his first big-league goal in his NHL debut with the Detroit Red Wings Thursday night in Columbus against the Blue Jackets. Cholowski’s goal, 7:46 into the second period, tied the game 1-1... Brandon Manning, a former Spruce King defenceman and Prince George native, played his first game for the Chicago Blackhawks Thursday in Ottawa against the Senators. Manning, 28, signed as a free agent with Chicago over the summer after four seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers. He was paired with Hawks veteran Brent Seabrook... Kelowna has been awarded the 2020 Memorial Cup, beating out competing bids from Kamloops and Lethbridge, Alta. The last time Kelowna hosted Canada’s major junior hockey championship was in 2004, when the Rockets won it on home ice. Vancouver was the most recent B.C. city to host the event, in 2007, and the host Giants won it that year... The Lethbridge Hurricanes, last year’s WHL semifinalists, acquired former Cariboo Cougar forward Ty Kolle Friday from the Portland Winterhawks. The Hurricanes gave up a fifth-round bantam pick in 2019 to get the rights to the 18-yearold from Kamloops... The Yellowhead Rotary Club has organized a Thanksgiving food drive and will be collecting donations of non-perishable food items at tonight’s game.