It was a Good Friday for the Prince George Cougars!
The Cougars can start making plans for the playoffs.
It is not official yet but they are on the verge of their first postseason berth in five years.
Ty Young made 43 saves and Captain Jonny Hooker snapped a 2-2 tie at 7:57 of the third period as the Cougars won their biggest road game of the season 4-2 over the Kamloops Blazers.
🎥SAVE OF THE NIGHT🎥
Ty reminds us what it’s like to be Young and spry. @RealCdnSS | @PGCougars | #NHLDraft | #SaveoftheNight pic.twitter.com/fn5zL5IL4u
— The WHL (@TheWHL) April 16, 2022
The box score and game highlights are right here.
Hooker’s winner came 26 seconds after Drew Englot of the Blazers tied the game at 2-2.
“Without question it was our biggest game of the year and our best game of the year,” said Cougars Associate Coach Josh Dixon. “We’re so proud of the effort of all the guys. The character we showed, with being one of the youngest teams in the league, and holding off the Blazers, who threw everything they had at us, in our most important game of the year, I can’t say enough about the effort.”
The (24-38-4-1) Cougars are tied with the (24-38-5-0) Vancouver Giants for 6th in the Western Conference with 53 points, one point ahead of the (23-38-5-1) Victoria Royals and two in front of the 9th place (23-39-4-1) Spokane Chiefs.
All four teams have one game left and the top eight advance to the postseason.
The worst the Cougars can do is tie with Victoria and Spokane for 7th, 8th and 9th.
The team with the best goals-for-against would get 7th while the other two would play a tie-breaker.
The tie-breaking procedure is right here.
P.G. is -61, Victoria is -80 and Spokane is -103.
The Royals beat the Chiefs 7-3 Friday and will host Spokane again tonight.
The Giants lost 3-2 in overtime to the Kelowna Rockets and will conclude with a game tonight in Kamloops.
The Cougars wrap-up their regular season tonight when they visit Kelowna.
Prince George led Kamloops 2-0 after 40 minutes on second period goals by Riley Heidt and Connor Bowie.
Caden Brown put the game away with an empty net goal with 25 seconds left in the game.
The Blazers outshot the Cats 45-30 before 4,672 fans in Kamloops.
Is it tomorrow yet? #WHLScores pic.twitter.com/6dZWDbGZtf
— The WHL (@TheWHL) April 16, 2022
The WHL standings are right here.
The regular-season schedule and results for the PG Cougars are right here.
Cat Scan podcast:
CAT SCAN: @Hartley_Miller chats with @PGCougars associate coach Josh Dixon in this week”s episode
| https://t.co/K98kkOROWr #cityofpg #PrinceGeorge #northernbc #NorthernUprising #sports pic.twitter.com/08xgxWEPrn— My Prince George Now (@mypgnow) April 13, 2022