If you want to beat the Prince George Cougars, bring a goalie who’s never played in the WHL before.
For the third game in a row and fourth time this season, the Prince George Cougars lost to a goaltender making his WHL debut, as they got shut out 5-0 by the Edmonton Oil Kings.
Parker Snell made 29 saves for the Oil Kings in front of 7,385 fans at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
“It’s tough to put this one into words, honestly, until you get to watch some video on it,” said Cougars Assistant Coach Carter Rigby on the post game show on 94.3 the Goat.
“A lot of things went wrong, it was a penalty filled game.”
The Cougars were undisciplined, racking up 53 penalty minutes, and gave up two powerplay goals on seven opportunities.
The penalties went both ways in the chippy game, as the Oil Kings racked up 52 penalty minutes, but the Cougars went 0-for-4 on the powerplay.
“I thought the last little bit of the second period, we had a good stretch and a good push, and a good PK, they end up scoring as soon as we get out of the box there and I thought we had a momentum change at 3-0,” Rigby said.
“On the bench it felt that it started to come and unfortunately they get that fourth one there and from there it just turned into a fight-fest and a game that was pretty scrambly from start to finish.”
The loss puts Prince George’s losing streak at three, tying the longest so far this season.
“We’re in the mud right now, and I think every team goes through it at different times throughout the year, if you’re a team that says you don’t really go through adversity, well you’re going to find it once you get to playoffs,” Rigby said.
“We got to keep fighting through this, this isn’t just brush it off and away we go, we got to get back to work when we get back to Prince George and find ways to gather and rally around each other, and find wins and scrape wins.”
The Oil Kings outshot the Cats 32-29.
The box score is here.
With the loss, the Cougars (13-8-3-2) fall behind the Victoria Royals (14-8-3-2) in the WHL’s BC Division standings. The Cougars also dropped down to fifth in the Western Conference.
The WHL standings are here.
The Cougars are back in action Friday when they host the Regina Pats at the CN Centre.
The full Cougars schedule is here.
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