Blazers looking ahead

From The Daily News of Monday, March 10, 2008 . . .

The way Greg Hawgood sees it, a win is a win is a win, but . . . yes, there
is a but attached to it.
“There’s a sense of relief that the losing streak is over, for sure . . .
but we need to keep it in perspective,” the interim head coach of the WHL’s
Kamloops Blazers said Sunday, less than 24 hours after his squad had ended a
10-game winless skein as goaltender James Priestner backstopped them to a
1-0 victory over the Cougars in Prince George. The Cougars had beaten the
host Blazers 6-3 on Friday night.
“It’s a nice relief,” Hawgood said, and then, looking ahead to a midweek
visit from the Spokane Chiefs, added, “but we’ve got a tough task on
Wednesday.
“I respect Prince George an awful lot for the two hard games they gave us.
It’s not easy coming to the rink knowing that you’re not in the playoffs so
I give them a lot of credit.
“But we all know that Spokane is going to be a much tougher test. We have to
take the positive and the momentum and get better in practice so we can play
better on Wednesday.”
The Blazers had gone 0-9-1-0 since beating the visiting Kelowna Rockets 2-1
in a shootout on Feb. 8. It was the third-longest drought in franchise
history, worse than only two 12-game droughts in 1981-82.
Kamloops (27-37-2-2) is eighth in the Western Conference, three points
behind the Chilliwack Bruins, who lost a shootout 4-3 to the visiting
Kelowna Rockets on Sunday night. The Bruins have lost eight straight games.
The Blazers and Bruins each have four games remaining including a meeting in
Chilliwack on Friday.
The Cougars (19-46-1-3) will finish ninth in the Western Conference and
won’t make the playoffs. This was their last home game of the season.
The Blazers got a first-period power-play goal from right-winger Juuso
Puustinen, his 26th of the season, and Priestner, who turned 17 on Feb. 9,
made that stand up for the victory.
“There wasn’t a lot of lulls in the game,” Hawgood said. “All four lines
played well. The guys did some good things and it’s nice to finally see them
get rewarded for it.”
Still, Hawgood admitted, the Blazers, whose play has lacked discipline of
late, got off to something of a shaky start.
“We had a couple of bad penalties,” he said, “but then guys got on each
other a little bit to say that ‘we can’t go down the same road again.’ It
certainly was better for the rest of the game.”
Priestner recorded his second WHL shutout in his 16th start of the season.
He stopped 35 shots, including 13 in the third period.
“He played well,” Hawgood said. “Ever since coming back from that injury he
has worked really hard in practice and he’s getting the results in his
game.”
Priestner had some hamstring problems last month and didn’t see a lot of
activity. In four appearances since regaining his health, he has a 2.41 GAA
and a .928 save percentage.
This was the fourth 1-0 shutout victory in Blazers’ history. The others were
turned in by Mike Maniago, who stopped 28 shots in winning in Spokane on
Oct. 22, 2005; Dustin Slade, who turned aside 18 shots in beating visiting
Calgary on Dec. 5, 2003; and, Steve Passmore, who made 23 saves in a victory
in Prince Albert on Feb. 6, 1993. Passmore now is the Blazers’ goaltending
coach.
Kamloops played this game without defenceman Nick Ross as Hawgood chose to
make the 18-year-old a healthy scratch.
“We expect a lot out of Nick so, without getting into great detail, we
thought we’d give it a try,” Hawgood said of sitting Ross, who was a
first-round selection of the Phoenix Coyotes in the NHL’s 2007 draft. Ross
was acquired from the Regina Pats in a Jan. 4 trade.
In his last 10 games, Ross has four points and 30 penalty minutes, and is
minus-7. He was minus-3 in Friday’s loss to the Cougars.
Ross is expected back in the lineup Wednesday against Spokane.
Kamloops will open the playoffs on the road, starting a best-of-seven series
March 21 and 22 against the Chiefs, Vancouver Giants or Tri-City Americans,
who play out of Kennewick, Wash.
Which means the visit by the Chiefs, who reached the 100-point plateau
Saturday, just might be a playoff preview.
JUST NOTES: The Cougars, who have been blanked five times this season, got
27 saves from G Real Cyr in the final home game of his WHL career. Cyr is 20
so will be done when this season ends. . . . The Blazers scratched Ross, who
did make the trip north, D Mark Schneider (knee), LW Shayne Wiebe and G Jon
Groenheyde. . . . Hawgood said Schneider is “very doubtful” for the first
round of postseason play.