Cougars survive Pats third period push to snap three-game losing skid

Perhaps Mark Lamb should buy a lottery ticket.

Mired in a three-game losing streak, Josh Ravensbergen willed the Prince George Cougars to an ugly 4-2 victory over the Regina Pats in front of 3,840 fans at CN Centre on Friday.

Ravensbergen, was named the game’s first star following his 32-save performance, 15 of those were in the third period – most of which were of the high-quality variety.

“When you are in a funk and you are trying to push uphill and it’s not really working it is hard to get out of that. You need a performance like we got in net,” said Lamb post-game to MyPGNow.com.

Despite getting outshot 12-5 in the opening 20 minutes, PG found themselves ahead by a 2-1 score.

Riley Heidt potted his 12th of the season after a slow-rolling puck found its way to the Minnesota Wild top prospect who shot into a yawning cage for a 1-0 lead.

Reese Hamilton evened the score for the Pats after a slick move along the middle of the ice, dancing to the slot and sliding it past Ravensbergen.

Newly-acquired forward Julien Maze, won a puck battle to allow Hamilton the space to move into scoring position.

His first in a Pats’ sweater. Reese Hamilton gets Regina on the scoresheet@WHLPats | #NHLDraft pic.twitter.com/aH3eBzWxy2

— The WHL (@TheWHL) December 7, 2024

Former Pat and Cougars star overage forward Borya Valis re-directed a point shot from Bauer Dumanski on a delayed Regina penalty with two seconds remaining, another lucky bounce capitalized by the hosts.

Valis pots one against his old team, we lead through one!@CarlsJrCA pic.twitter.com/D7P91yfkEQ

— Prince George Cougars (@PGCougars) December 7, 2024

In the second, both teams stood their ground with not much change in the way of momentum until the dying seconds.

While on a power-play, Cougars rookie blueliner Carson Carels ripped a shot through some open ice that found its way to the skate of Terik Parascak who deflected it into the open goal for a 3-1 lead.

Three deflections, three goals. To the untrained eye and even to the casual hockey fan, most would call that luck – however, on this night, Lamb begged to differ.

“I don’t feel they were lucky at all. We had to work for those goals, and it was a tough sledding game for us.”

Carson Carels: setting up tap-ins since 2008.@Capitals | @CarlsJrCA pic.twitter.com/n89rV49SGm

— Prince George Cougars (@PGCougars) December 7, 2024

After the Cougars failed to score on some early power-plays in the third, Regina peppered Ravensbergen with shots only to be turned aside.

The draft-eligible goalie, stoned Zach Moore point-blank following a nifty feed from Keets Fawcett re-directing the puck off the shoulder and post and out of harms way.

Zach Pantelakis and Braxton Whitehead were also told that the drive-thru was closed by Ravensbergen missing on a pair of odd-man rushes as was former Cougar Zackary Shantz .

Caden Brown, another former Cougars player trimmed the deficit to 3-2 with 1:05 remaining on the power-play. A mad scramble in front of the Cougars net saw several missed clearing attempts.

Dumanski had the puck bounce off his glove and right to Brown who slid it in.

The Pats pulled their goalie again with less than a minute remaining but a misplay by Maze allowed Valis to swoop in and outmuscle a pair of Pats to earn his second goal of the game and third point.

“When you are in like this, it is hard for people to understand it is like you are skating uphill all of the time. There’s lots of things that are going wrong, and you have to fight through it. It doesn’t matter who fights through it, we had our goaltender do that and that is a positive sign,” added Lamb.

“Regina is a good team that is coming around, they are a quick, fast team and made a lot of trades. Their chemistry is starting to come together and you certainly can’t look to the standings of any of these teams and when you do that, look at the team we just played they are a good hockey team and any team can win in this league.”

Regina outshot PG 34-21 while both teams went 1-for-5 on the power-play.

The Cougars improved to 14-8-3-1 on the season, two points back of the idle Victoria Royals (15-8-3-2) who sit atop the BC Division throne – PG has one game in hand.

Regina drops to 7-17-2-2 on the season and wraps up a lengthy road trip Sunday in Edmonton against the Oil Kings (12-12-1-1).

It’s been an eventful year for the Pats who are in the midst of a rebuilding phase. General Manager and Vice President of Hockey Operations Alan Millar has made eight trades so far this season adding draft capital and fresh blood into an organization that needed a much clearer direction.

Names like Tanner Howe, Corbin and Jaxin Vaughan along with Cole Temple have been dealt in recent weeks netting some good buildings blocks such as Hamiton, Maze, Connor Bear, Pantelakis, Keets Fawcett and Brown.

Pats head coach Brad Herauf sees light at the end of the tunnel after back-to-back strong efforts against the Vancouver Giants (5-3 win on Wednesday) and the close shave against the Cougars.

“Our effort and attitude were in the right place tonight and Prince George was down a couple of guys tonight. I felt we tried to press on their younger defenceman and their top players were their top players.”

After starting the BC trip with back-to-back blowout losses to Kamloops and Kelowna, Herauf commends the players for fighting through the early adversity all while the new nucleus starts to gel.

“We haven’t a full practice together as a new group so it’s a lot of new stuff for these guys but a lot of it came down to effort and what we expect out of the Regina Pats and that wasn’t being met. Maybe it was due to a lot of moving parts and new people coming in but we hammered the video and standard of play of what we expect here and we were better the last two games.”

Regina sits nine points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, that is currently occupied by the up-and-coming Prince Albert Raiders who are 8-1-1-0 in their last ten games – mark only bested by the Western Conference leading Everett Silvertips (8-0-1-1)

“I have been here for ten years and this is the first time we have had all these draft picks. It is something all had to do and has been in the works. It sucks as a coach but it is going to benefit our organization in the long run,” added Herauf.

Shantz, a former Cougars player and draft pick has 15 points in 25 games for the Pats. The Sucker Creek, Alberta native posted a career-high 25 points last season.

Brown, who was a Cougars 1st round prospects pick in 2020 has 13 points in 22 games split between the Pats and Silvertips. He has notched a goal and three assists since moving to the Queen City.

Tyson Buczkowski, another former Cougars player didn’t suit up in Friday’s loss to PG. He has nine points in 20 games after being acquired in the Valis trade prior to last year’s WHL Trade Deadline.

Madden Mulawka, a former Cougars goaltender was also acquired by the Pats last season is playing for the Melfort Mustangs of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. He is 8-0-0 in ten games for the Mustangs posting a 1.94 goals against average and a .922 save percentage.

PG plays its final home game of 2024 tonight (Saturday) against the Kamloops Blazers (12-15-1-0) at 6:00 from CN Centre, which is billed as the annual Teddy Bear Toss game.

Terik’s game-winner is good for $200! pic.twitter.com/0GezA4SMxp

— Prince George Cougars (@PGCougars) December 7, 2024