Bad things happen when you take penalties, and the Prince George Cougars found that out the hard way in a 6-3 loss to the Kamloops Blazers.
The Cougars opened the scoring with Arseni Anisimov potting a rebound for his second of the year, but after that it was all Kamloops for the majority of the rest of the game.
The Blazers scored five straight goals, three of which came on the powerplay, and two of those powerplay goals came with the two-man advantage.
Koehn Ziemmer and Borya Valis tacked on goals but it was too little, too late for the Cougars.
“We started out the way we wanted to start out, we got the lead and I think we have a little bit of a tired team, we played a lot of hockey here in the last little while, but two goaltenders have beaten our two goaltenders in the last two games,” said Associate Coach Jim Playfair on the post-game show on 94.3 the Goat.
“I think the second part of that is we have players that have to recognize and we have to collectively as a group mature on how to win hockey games. I think we get into a situation, we get down in games on the road, and we start to get after each other a little bit and not in a positive way, but more of a whining way and a pissing and moaning way, and I think that’s just the immaturity of our group and expectations of the organization and everybody else is to be a real solid team and to find ways to win, and so we just have to get back to that.”
Josh Ravensbergen got the start in net for the Cougars, making 31 saves on 37 shots.
The Cougars outshot the Blazers 43-37.
The box score is here.
The Cougars (24-12-3-2) are on top of the BC Division and are second in the Western Conference.
The WHL standings are here.
The Cougars are back in action Friday, taking on the Spokane Chiefs.
The full Cougars schedule is here.
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