Cougars at Blazers

From The Daily News of Monday, Sept. 10, 2007 . . .

Like a good comedian, the Kamloops Blazers handed the Prince George Cougars a line Saturday night.
With the unit of, left to right, Travis Dunstall, Brock Nixon and Tyler Shattock combining for nine points, the Blazers dumped the unsmiling Cougars 4-3 in a WHL exhibition game before about 1,200 fans at Interior Savings Centre.
The victory, coming one night after a 6-3 triumph in Prince George, lifted the Blazers‚ record to 4-1 with two games left before the shooting starts for real. The Cougars, who are finished with the silly season, are 1-4.
As the Blazers move closer to the start of the regular season, they find themselves staring at three primary questions: 1. Who will be their goaltenders; 2. Which defencemen will they keep; and, 3. From where will they get secondary scoring?
Last things first . . .
All teams want secondary scoring, but only the good teams get it. The Blazers know that Nixon and right-winger Juuso Puustinen, who is in camp with the NHL’s Calgary Flames, will score. After all, they combined for 67 goals and 150 points last season.
The Blazers, then, need contributions from the likes of Shattock, a sophomore who scored twice Saturday and has four to date, Dunstall and left-winger Ivan Rohac. Dunstall, starting his third season, scored his first goal of the preseason, while Rohac, the Slovakian sophomore, added his second.
But it has been the play of Shattock, a 17-year-old from Salmon Arm, that has general manager and head coach Dean Clark smiling.
“He’s been really good,” Clark said. “He had a great camp and has continued that on through exhibition. He’s one of the more focused guys we have and it shows with the way he’s being rewarded with goals and opportunities. He’s been very good.”
It was this kind of play the Blazers envisioned when they selected Shattock with the sixth pick of the 2005 bantam draft.
“We need him to contribute and I think he can,” Clark said. “That’s kind of what we projected when we drafted him — a big winger who can be physical and also score.”
Shattock said it’s all a matter of being comfortable, something he wasn’t a year ago when he was all nerves as he tried to crack the lineup.
“A year has gone by,” he said. “The confidence issue is not really a concern any more.”
While his confidence is up, so, he said, is his speed.
“This year I came in as a veteran wanting to play hard every night,” Shattock said. “I worked pretty hard in the offseason to get to where I am now. I increased my speed a bit so hopefully I can put up some numbers this season. Whenever you have an extra step it’s that much easier to play the game.”
Last season, without the extra step, he had 16 points, including eight goals, in 58 games.
“I don’t feel I have to score but I want to score,” the 6-foot-3, 190-pounder said. “Any goalscorer likes to score goals.”
As for the Blazers’ defencemen, well, they didn’t do much to raise themselves above the fray. With Kamloops minus three of its best defencemen — Victor Bartley (Detroit Red Wings), Keaton Ellerby (Team Canada) and Ryan White (healthy scratch) — none of the ones on the bubble did anything to distinguish themselves.
“We weren’t very good on the back end,” Clark said. “We didn’t communicate very well and got ourselves in trouble when we just didn’t talk. If you put Bartley, Ellerby and White in the lineup it’s a lot different game for us back there.
“But some of the guys who are trying to make our hockey club struggled a little bit.”
The battle on the blue line is one that Shattock and others are watching with interest.
“That’s going to be a tough decision,” he said. “All those guys back there can play; they wouldn’t be here if they couldn’t. I don’t know . . . lucky that’s not up to me for that decision.”
Which brings us to the goaltenders.
Veteran Dustin Butler started for Kamloops and stopped 13 of 15 shots, the two goals he gave up both finding room between his pads. The first, off the stick of Greg Gardner from the right side, squeezed through from a bad angle; the second, off a point shot, was redirected by Jordie Deagle.
Butler was relieved by freshman Jon Groenheyde at 9:18 of the second period. Groenheyde, from Surrey, stopped 10 shots, beaten only by Dale Hunt on a slapshot off the right wing.
Veteran Justin Leclerc and newcomer James Priestner had split the duties in Prince George on Friday.
Suffice it to say that the goaltending waters in Kamloops still are somewhat muddy, which isn‚t the case in Prince George.
Cyr, who will play a lot this season and is going to see more rubber than roadkill, was terrific. Again. On Friday night, he went the distance as his mates were outshot, 40-13. On Saturday, he played the first half, giving up two goals on 18 shots. His abbreviated appearance included saves on Mark Hall and Dunstall from the slot and three straight stops on Nixon with the Blazers enjoying a 5-on-3 advantage, all of those coming in the last seven minutes of the first period.
“Real was excellent (Friday) night and played very well for the first 30 minutes tonight,” Cougars head coach Drew Schoneck said. “We’re going to have to have that with the kind of group we have. We’re going to have to have him making the big save and keeping us in it until we get our feet under us.”
The Cougars led 2-0 four minutes into the second period but then surrendered four straight goals. That came one night after they blew a 3-0 lead and gave up six consecutive goals.
“I thought our team game was a lot better (Saturday). Our compete level and battle level were better,” Schoneck said. “That’s a good lineup over there. They skate and move the puck pretty well but our guys were right there to the bitter end.”
JUST NOTES: Prince George GM Dallas Thompson spent the weekend in Kennewick, Wash., watching the Tri-City Americans‚ tournament and trying to get a feel for the teams in the U.S. Division. That’s important with the WHL having changed its playoff format so that the top eight teams in the Western Conference will make the playoffs, rather than the top four in each division. . . . The Blazers and Chilliwack Bruins meet Tuesday in Abbotsford in exhibition action, with Kamloops’ last preseason game Friday against the visiting Kelowna Rockets.