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HomeNewsCougars fail to catch the Tigers by their tails

Cougars fail to catch the Tigers by their tails

Despite holding a 3-1 lead in the second intermission, the Prince George Cougars decided to sleepwalk through the third period against the Medicine Hat Tigers … big mistake.

A six-goal outburst in the final period propelled the visitors to a 7-4 victory over the Cougars at the CN Centre on Tuesday.

The tide started to turn in favour of the Tigers when they killed off consecutive penalties late in the middle frame, which included a double-minor to Jaegar White.

“Our power-play was awful,” said Cougars Head Coach Richard Matvichuk during 94.3 The GOAT’s post-game show.

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“We had too many selfish players out there not worried if the team is going to score as they wanted their points and that doesn’t work on the power-play and that’s why it is last in the league.”

Things quickly snowballed from there as Medicine Hat scored five times in a span of 11 minutes, including a pair on the power-play from James Hamblin and Mark Rassell, followed by a shorthanded goal from Ryan Jevne who also potted an empty-netter.

“I thought we were on our heels for the first half of the game, I thought they intimidated us a little bit since they are a big, heavy team that is very strong and we have to move our feet to be successful,” says Shaun Clouston, Tigers Head Coach.

“Our penalty kill was very strong even though it hasn’t been lately, so it was nice to see the guys do a heck of a job.”

The Cougars got off to a fast start in the opening 20 minutes as Vladislav Mikhalchuk notched a pair of goals while Kody McDonald added a single to give Prince George a 3-1 lead.

McDonald says the team failed to maintain the same mindset after jumping out to the early lead.

“It’s a 60-minute game and we’ve got to come out each and every period and play our hardest. The fact that we didn’t come out in the third and didn’t play our game really showed and that’s how we lost the game today.”

The 19-year-old forward believes the disappointing loss is part of the continuing amount of growing pains the Cougars have endured this season.

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“We have a young a team and there is still a lot of learning that has to go on still, it’s still early here and well before Christmas. We had an experienced team last year and the number of times we gave up a two-goal lead really came back to bite us but with a young team I wouldn’t look too much into it and we’ll correct our mistakes.”

Medicine Hat goaltender Jordan Hollett picked up the 34-save victory in goal while Cougars netminder Tavin Grant allowed six goals on 32 shots and was pulled with nine minutes remaining in the third period after the Tigers stretched their lead to 6-3.

Earlier in the day, 19-year-old defenceman Dennis Cholowski was named the new captain.

Both teams will play again Wednesday night at 7PM from the CN Centre.

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