The Prince George Cougars’ road struggles continued last night (Friday), allowing five powerplay goals in an 8-5 loss to the Red Deer Rebels.
The struggles showed early in the game, as the Rebels potted three first period goals in front of 3,513 raucous fans at the Peavy Mart Centrium in Red Deer.
Tyler Brennan was supposed to get the start in net for the Cats but was injured in the warmup, forcing Ty Young between the pipes.
The Cougars roared back with four second period-goals from Viliam Kmec, Ondrej Becher, Jaxsen Wiebe, and Koehn Ziemmer to take the lead.
“If I shoot ’em high, shoot ’em high, shoot ’em high,
Then we tie the game, tie the game, tie the game.”
Jaxsen Wiebe, probably.@PGCougars pic.twitter.com/cyIm1uIcST
— The WHL (@TheWHL) January 21, 2023
Kmec was credited with a goal the Rebels put into their own empty net on a delayed penalty to the Cougars.
The Rebels answered back with four powerplay goals.
“They’re good five-on-five, so when you’re playing five-on-four and you’re down, they’re that much better,” said Cougars Assistant Coach Carter Rigby on last night’s post game show on 94.3 The Goat.
Ziemmer scored a second goal to bring the Cats within two in the final five minutes, but the Rebels added another of their own to cap off the 8-5 win.
Two-goal night for Koehn Ziemmer!@PGCougars | #NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/mCoGy4NxKC
— The WHL (@TheWHL) January 21, 2023
“Another start with our group here that we don’t come out aggressive, they’re a good team, they’re top of their group for a reason,” Rigby said.
“We’ve got to be better for sure, we keep on talking about the first period with us, but the second period was great, physical, and it was more like the Calgary game.”
The full box score can be found here.
The Cougars fell to 2-3-1 on their seven game swing through the prairies, which will wrap up tonight against last year’s WHL Champions and now league worst Edmonton Oil Kings (6-34-2-0).
The full Cougars Schedule can be found here.
The Cougars (18-20-4-0) sit second in the WHL’s BC Division, behind the Kamloops Blazers (25-9-4-2), and sixth in the Western Conference.
The full WHL standings can be found here.
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