The Prince George Cougars have the worst ranked power play in the WHL and it showed in a 3-2 loss to the Kamloops Blazers on Friday night.
The Cougars went 0-for-5 on the power play, including a five minute advantage that started midway through the final period after Tyler Ludwar of the Blazers took a major penalty for a knee-on-knee with Joel Lakusta.
On the other hand, the Blazers got the only power play goal of the game when bruising forward Jermaine Loewen snapped a 2-2 tie, his 26th of the season, with just 40.9 seconds left in the third period.
The six-foot-four, 221-pound Loewen crashed the net and banged home the rebound past Taylor Gauthier.
“Our power play was terrible,” said a frustrated Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk on the 94.3 the Goat post-game show.
“We have a guy like Josh Maser and Josh Curtis sitting in front, banging, taking bodies, taking cross checks and then we have O’Brien, Bethune and Lakusta up top that just think they want to cross ice pass, sauce pass, go cross ice, go dipsy doodle, it doesn’t work.”
Matvichuk says he will make changes to the personnel on the power play when the two teams have their rematch tonight at CN Centre.
“It’s a privilege to be on the power play and you have to work to be there and as a coaching staff we’ll make those adjustments. You can’t just have one shot on a five-minute power play, it doesn’t matter who you are or what league, it’s going to change the momentum of the period and that’s exactly what happened.”
The game was tied 2-2 after both the first and second periods.
Ilijah Colina and Kjell Kjemhuis (1st WHL goal) tallied for the (19-28-4-4) Cougars 51 seconds apart, before an announced home crowd of 2,901.
Gauthier made 30 saves as the Blazers outshot the Cats 33-28.
Kamloops is 4-2 against Prince George in the season series with four more to go.
The (25-25-1-3) Blazers are eight points ahead of the last place Cougars, but they are still eight points out of a playoff spot.
WESTERN HOCKEY LEAGUE:
Victoria    6  Kelowna  1
Vancouver 2  Seattle    1  (OT)
Spokane   2   Everett   1  (OT)
Portland   3   Tri-City   2
BC DIVISION STANDINGS:
Kelowna, 54 games = 33-17-3-1Â (70 points)
Victoria, 56 games = 33-19-3-1Â (70 points)
Vancouver, 54 games = 29-17-5-3 (66 points)
Kamloops, 54 games = 25-25-1-3 (54 points)
Prince George, 55 games = 19-28-4-4 (46 points)
WESTERN CONFERENCE WILD CARD:
Tri-City, 53 games = 27-18-7-1 (62 points)
Seattle, 53 games = 27-18-6-2 (62 points)
Kamloops, 54 games = 25-25-1-3 (54 points)
Prince George, 55 games = 19-28-4-4 (46 points)