The powerplay was the difference as the Prince George Cougars fell 4-3 Saturday to the Portland Winterhawks.
The Winterhawks went three for seven with the man advantage, much to the delight of the 5,635 fans at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
“It’s 12 minor penalties in two games, so it’s on us to rectify some of that stuff,” said Cougars Associate Coach Jim Playfair on last night’s post-game show on 94.3 the Goat.
“I think that our penalty kill’s kind of on a slippery slope right now, we’re not really aggressive, we’re missing Becher and Kmec, and I think we’re taxing, obviously Riley Heidt’s playing too many minutes, he’s obviously a good player, but we’re taxing him too much, same with Parascak and a couple of our other guys.”
The Cougars did not score on any of their four powerplay opportunities.
For the Cougars, Zac Funk notched his league-leading 41st of the season, Borya Valis scored his first as a Cougar, and Carlin Dezainde found the back of the net.
Josh Davies sent the fans home happy, as we scored the game-winning goal for the Winterhawks in the final minute of the game.
“I thought we did a lot of really good things,” Playfair said.
“I thought we had competitive energy, I thought we rolled our lines, we battled through some adversity and we came back from deficits.”
The Cougars outshot the Winterhawks 40-28.
Josh Ravensbergen got the start in net for the Cougars, and made 24 saves.
The full box score can be found here.
The Prince George Cougars (28-11-0-0) are on top of the WHL’s Western conference standings.
The full WHL standings can be found here.
The Cougars will finish their five-game road trip with a tilt against the Everett Silvertips. (23-14-1-2) today (Sunday 4:00).
The full Cougars schedule can be found here.