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HomeNewsCougars pounce early and often to blank Winterhawks
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Cougars pounce early and often to blank Winterhawks

By Brendan Pawliw
Photo credit James Doyle

Facing their first true test of the 2024 WHL Playoffs, the Prince George Cougars passed with flying colours.

A three-goal second period from Bauer Dumanski, Hudson Thornton and Ondrej Becher paced the Cougars to a dominant 5-0 victory over the Portland Winterhawks in front of another standing-room only crowd of 6,011 fans at CN Centre.

Prince George leads the best-of-seven Western Conference Final 1-0 with Game 2 tonight (Saturday) at 6:00 in PG.

The Cougars dictated the terms of the series opener less than two minutes into the opening period.

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An errant pass by Nate Danielson outside the Winterhawks blueline led to a quick transition play by Riley Heidt who found Terik Parascak.

The 17-year-old made no mistake as his quick slap shot blew past the glove of Portland goaltender Jan Spunar giving the hosts a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.

The Cougars transition game proved lethal once again in the middle period as a 3-on-2 rush lead by Zac Funk, found a streaking Dumanski as his quick wrister bleat the glove hand of Spunar.

Less than six minutes later, Thornton activated his offensive instinct from inside the Winterhawks blueline as his wrist shot fluttered off a pair of the shoulder of Spunar sending the crowd into another frenzy.

“It feels good to come out like that. When you hear the crowd roaring like that right before O’Canada it is pretty easy to play a good game like that. Game One’s are very important when setting the tone for the series and our group did that tonight – it is the easiest game so far in my opinion but it only gets harder from here as they will re-group and give us a good game tomorrow,” added Thornton post-game.

Prior to the intermission, Koehn Ziemmer sprung Becher on a 2-on-2 rush inside the Portland blueline – the 19-year-old import from Czechia drove to the middle of the ice and flicked a wrist shot past Spunar for a commanding 4-0 edge.

Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb told the media post-game the score line wasn’t indicative of the play and that a big push is anticipated by the Winterhawks for Game Two.

“When you get to the final four, there are only four teams left in the league and it’s usually the best teams – you are going to get some good hockey. I was really happy with how we handled ourselves against a high-powered team we haven not seen in a while, we stuck to our game plan, the guys bought in and it was a really strong game.”

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“Nothing really struck me at all with their team. They have four really good lines with six defence and a good goaltender – nothing surprised me, but I was happy with how we played against them.”

Ziemmer added the exclamation point on the power-play – off a strong feed from Carlin Dezainde, the 19-year-old from Mayerthorpe, Alberta found himself alone in front and pounced on his golden opportunity.

The Cougars outshot the Winterhawks 35-32. Portland went 0-for-1 while PG was 1-for-3.

Josh Ravensbergen continued his stellar play in the PG crease turning aside 33 Portland attempts, improving to 8-0-0 this postseason all while netting his third playoff shutout to along with the six others he complied in the regular season.

The 17-year-old from North Vancouver, was named the game’s first star and now sits with a 1.62 goals against average and .941 save percentage.

Thornton continues to marvel over Ravensbergen’s calm demeanor in the crease at this critical juncture of the season.

“You don’t really explain it but it is a credit to him as he works so hard and is one of the hardest working guys I know – he is always trying to get better and is doing all the little things that are paying off for him and he deserves everything he is getting. He has been our back bone this season and we are lucky to have him.”

Spunar allowed five goals on 35 shots in defeat.

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It was a rare off night at the office for Portland as it was their first defeat of the 2024 postseason after running the table in the first two rounds against the Everett Silvertips and Victoria Royals.

Overage forward Jack O’Brien said it was tough sledding against a Cougars team that did a good job suffocating them every time they reached the PG blueline.

“This time of the year the games are going to be tough. You have to fight for every inch – I do not think it was a 5-0 game. We are going to look at the positives and learn from our mistakes tonight (Friday).”

“Time and space is limited out there. I think we need to play a little bit simpler and chip the puck in. I think we will be in a good spot if we do that tomorrow night.”

Winterhawks bench boss Mike Johnston grew visibly frustrated with the rabid Cougar fans getting into a verbal jousting match with a couple of them directly behind the Portland bench, which led to an ejection.

Johnston addressed the fans behavior earlier in the game, but the issue didn’t get resolved until much later.

“During the game there was no security behind our bench and I was asking for security and for some reason it was not provided. The fans kept walking over from the stands and leaning over the bench from the glass and the referee finally took charge of it.”

As for the game, Johnston believes both teams did a good job of clogging up the offensive zones but it was the Cougars transition game that proved advantageous.

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“I thought PG got a couple of good looks off the rush. We need to be better there, but I thought the offensive zone play saw both teams shut themselves down at times, there was not a lot of possession time in the offensive zone.”

“The second chances are the key thing, I thought we had some good looks and good shots – there were a few rebounds to be had but their defenceman did a good job of getting sticks in and boxing us out. We need to converge on those rebounds.”

In the Eastern Conference Final, Brayden Yager’s eighth of the post season turned out to be the winner as he led the Moose Jaw Warriors to a 4-3 overtime victory over the Saskatoon Blades.

Moose Jaw battled back from a 2-0 deficit to stun the top-seeded Blades in front of 8,973 fans at Sasktel Centre.

The Warriors lead the series 1-0 with Game Two also set for Saturday.

Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].

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