The Prince George Cougars (16-22-1-2) had not played a home game since December 2nd prior to Friday night.
That last home game on December 2nd resulted in a 5-3 win for the Cougars against division rivals, the Victoria Royals, before heading on the road for eleven straight games.
The road trip did not treat Prince George so well until the tail end, when things seemed to turn around for the club.
Friday night the Cougars played against divisional opponents, the Kelowna Rockets, whom the Cougars took down by a 2-1 shootout victory in their last meeting.
Those type of divisional weekends are worth eight points when all is said and done, as teams can make up quite a bit of ground in just a couple of games. And that’s exactly what the Cougars did.
Prince George started it off with a bang in game one of the doubleheader, scoring four unanswered goals in the first period and outshooting the Rockets 17-5 in the opening 20 minutes of play.
The onslaught continued into the middle stanza as the Cougars scored their fifth straight goal before Kelowna was finally able to put one past goaltender Taylor Gauthier to make the game 5-1 after 40 minutes.
The third period was good for another three goals between the two teams and exhausting the goal horn inside CN Centre, making the final score 7-2.
A standout from the weekend was Cougars forward Ethan Browne. The Prince George forward has been on quite the roll posting six points over his last two games. Browne, eligible for the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, has 24 points in 39 games this season.
It was a coming out party for an offense that had just nine goals in their first six games back after the Christmas break.
Josh Maser, Cole Moberg, Joel Lakusta, Vladislav Mikhalchuk all recorded multi-point games on Friday night.
#WHL KEL/PG: @PGCougars post a season high 7 goals, including 4 in first paced by a Josh Maser double. 8 goals in last 13 games, starting with 7 in first 23. Cole Moberg also doubles up – and adds an assist – and joins a tie for 3rd place amongst rearguard goal scorers.
— Geoffrey Brandow (@GeoffreyBrandow) January 12, 2019
Saturday night was more of the same, as Taylor Gauthier displayed his best imitation of a brick wall, earning him his third shutout of the season stopping all 20 Kelowna shots he faced.
That performance propelled Gauthier to a 4-1-0-0 record during his last four starts, two of those resulting in shutout performances.
The Cougars offense also did their job scoring 7:57 into the first period, and three more times in the ensuing periods to take game two of the doubleheader by a 4-0 count.
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— PG Cougars (@PGCougars) January 13, 2019
Don’t look now but the Cougars are .500 in their last ten games and have won four of their last five. The team now sits in the second Western Conference Wild Card spot, just three points back of Kelowna for third place in the BC Division.
Prince George has been playing much better at home, sporting a 9-9-0-1 record, while earning just a 7-13-1-1 record when sitting on the visitors bench.
An impressive feat for a team with the second least amount of goals in the WHL.
The Cougars are back in action on January 15th, when they face the league leading Prince Albert Raiders at 7 PM at the CN Centre in Prince George.
