Expectations weren’t high in Kamloops this year, but surely they weren’t this low. A Prince George team, that some had in the basement of the Western Conference, ran roughshod over a equally young and inexperienced Blazer team.
(photo by Allen Douglas)
It was evident early in the first period that Kamloops was in tough as the Cougars were controlling the play and found themselves up 2-0 at the first period media timeout with goals by Joel Lakusta and Kody Mcdonald. At 12:32 of the 1st period Kamloops was able to bring the game to within one with Connor Zary’s first goal of his WHL career. The teams would then trade goals and the first frame would finish 3-2 in favour of the Cougars.
As the teams came out for the second period it was more of the same from PG as Aaron Boyd was able to find the back of the net on a slick play to the middle of the ice, beating multiple defenders to make the score 4-2. The Cats would go on to score two more in the period which would bring Dylan Ferguson‘s night to an end and queue up Kamloops’ product Max Palaga to enter the goal.
Palaga would play very well the remainder of the game facing 20 shots in 31:55 of work. One would think that Palaga has a shot to play Friday versus Victoria, but the coaching staff may want to save him for the “easier” non-divisional game against Seattle on Sunday.
Final Shots 42-19 PG
Final Score 6-2 PG
PG – 1/6 PP
KAM – 1/4 PP
