Cougars drop fourth game in a row

The streak continues for the Prince George Cougars as they fell 4-1 to the Everett Silvertips Saturday night.

“I think when you step back and take a bigger look at this thing, there’s four games in a row that we’ve had 25 penalties, whether it’s minor penalties, five-minute majors, 5-on-3’s, and that lack of connectiveness to how to play our system and how to stick with our system has become an issue for us,” said Associate Coach Jim Playfair on the post-game show on 94.3 the Goat.

“We were better tonight after the first period, I thought when Parascak tied it up late in the first period, that gave us some energy and some juice, I thought the second period was probably the best period we’ve played in the last four games, and we got back in the third period and we just couldn’t sustain the push.”

The loss extends the Cougars’ losing streak to four games.

“I think the issue isn’t the opponent as much as it is ourselves, deciding that we’re going to bear down individually, and then collectively, and start making better hockey plays,” Playfair said.

“We’re not taking care of the puck, we’re not starting on time, we’re not playing with enough discipline to give ourselves a chance to win, and it erodes our confidence, it erodes our belief in the structure, it erodes our belief in themselves and in each other. I certainly don’t think it’s a lack of effort per se, and they’re quitting on plays or quitting on each other, but I do think that we’ve lost that confident, challenging push within the bench, within the dressing room that says we should expect to win, we’re hoping to win, we want to score more goals than the opposition instead of doing right from the goal line all the way back down to the other end.”

Josh Ravensbergen held the Cougars in it again, making 37 saves on 40 shots.

“I don’t think goaltending’s been our problem at all,”

“We’re not establishing a quick enough re-attack, forecheck, sustained offensive zone time, what happens is you end up spending a lot of time trying to defend the rush and the goaltenders have to be the last line of defence and they’re seeing a lot of extra shots they shouldn’t be seeing and that ties into where our team is. I don’t think you can blame any of the goaltenders for any of these four losses that we’ve been going through.”

Tarin Smith opened the scoring for Everett 6:08 into the first, bringing the 7,417 fans at the Angel of the Winds Arena into the game early.

Terik Parascak tied it late in the opening frame, potting a rebound that came from a Bauer Dumanski point shot.

Terik Parascak’s 20th of the season and second of the weekend has us even!@Capitals | @CarlsJrCA https://t.co/GqA1NjDWmQ pic.twitter.com/HEvIXt0A45

— Prince George Cougars (@PGCougars) January 19, 2025

From there, it was all Everett as Tyler MacKenzie scored the eventual winner, and Cole Temple added an insurance Marker. Dominik Rymon slid one into the empty Cougars cage as well.

The box score is here.

The Cougars (24-14-3-2) are second in the BC Division, four points behind the Victoria Royals (25-12-3-4).

The WHL standings are here.

The Cougars are back at the CN Centre Friday to kick off Indigenous Weekend against the Brandon Wheat Kings.

The full Cougars schedule is here.