Even though Groundhog Day is well past, it seems to be resurrecting itself with the Prince George Cougars.
Over 24 hours after dropping a 4-1 decision to the Everett Silvertips on Family Day, the Cougars suffered the same fate with the exact same score (4-1) in front of 2,139 fans at CN Centre on Tuesday.
The Cougar faithful jumped out of their seats for the only time at 5:56 of the first period when Ethan Browne rifled a shot past Everett netminder Dustin Wolf carrying 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.
The Silvertips slowly took over the game in the second, outshooting Prince George 16-5 and evened up the score courtesy of Zack Andrusiak who handcuffed Cougars netminder Taylor Gauthier.
Everett continued to crank up the heat in the final 20 minutes, eventually breaking the dam that was the Cougar defence lighting the lamp on three occasions courtesy of Reece Vitelli (2) and Bryce Kindopp.
? WHL Highlight of the Night ?
February 19, 2019@kindoppian of @WHLsilvertips#WHLHoN pic.twitter.com/kXci2Kpp8G— The WHL (@TheWHL) February 20, 2019
In an interview with My PG Now, Cougars defenceman Cole Moberg explained the team couldn’t quite get the bounces when they needed them.
“A couple of fluky goals go in the back of our net and as it has been those types of goals really deflate us and that’s exactly what happened.”
With the loss, the Cougars winless skid reaches seventeen games going 0-13-3-1 in the process, falling well behind the Seattle Thunderbirds for the final wild card playoff spot in the Western Conference and also trail the Kelowna Rockets by 14 points for third place in the BC Division.
To say the mental state of the Cougars is fragile would be a huge understatement right now as Moberg believes the team’s lack of confidence in big moments is becoming an additional hurdle for the team to overcome.
“We thought we were in it going into third tied 1-1 and we just tried to stay neutral in there but right now it is not the best mood after what happened in the third.”
How do you stay positive when you’re in a funk like this?
“You have to look at the things we did right in the first and second because we hung in with the best team in the Western Conference so we have to build on it, look at what we did wrong and go from there,” said Moberg.
Everett improves to 41-14-1-2, four points up on the Vancouver Giants for top spot in the conference.
The Silvertips outshot the Cougars 37-17 overall and did not receive a power-play the entire game while Prince George scored once on three opportunities.
The Cougars hit the road for a pair of games Friday and Saturday against the Kamloops Blazers and Everett.
A pair of home dates await Prince George after that on February 26th and 27th against the Spokane Chiefs.
EVT 4 PG 1
KEL 2 VIC 6
RD 3 TC 6— The WHL (@TheWHL) February 20, 2019