Blazers take care of Cougars

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Like construction workers putting in another day on the job, the Kamloops Blazers turned in a workmanlike effort Friday night.
It paid off in a 6-1 WHL victory over the out-manned and overmatched Prince George Cougars before 4,315 fans at Interior Savings Centre.
“I thought it was real good . . . workmanlike,” Kamloops head coach Barry Smith said. “Everyone contributed. Our special teams were good. We stuck to what we wanted to do and we could because we . . . weren’t behind the 8-ball.
“We didn’t let them get any momentum. We kept pushing the pace.”
And so it was that the home boys went to bed last night knowing they had the Western Conference’s best record (6-1-2-0). The Vancouver Giants (5-2-0-2) and Portland Winterhawks (6-2-0-0) both lost and now are two points in arrears.
The Cougars, meanwhile, lost their fourth straight game and fell to 2-6-0-0. They are playing without Brett Connolly (hip), one of the WHL’s top forwards, and Dallas Jackson (shoulder), arguably their top defenceman. And they played like it.
“We played a real good first period for a road game coming off the bus,” Cougars head coach Dean Clark said. “But they got three quick goals that kind of put the game . . . with our team right now . . . mentally we’re not very strong.
“I think our guys at that point probably thought the hill was too steep.”
The bottom line, Clark said, was that his side “didn’t have enough guys in the second period who competed.”
The Cougars got the game’s first goal, from forward Greg Fraser, at 6:07, only to have Kamloops tie it at 12:48 when centre Dylan Willick went to the net off the right boards and got a shot past goaltender James Priestner on the short side.
The Cougars, holding a 13-7 edge in shots, still appeared to be in good shape.
Then came the second period, which opened with Kamloops left-winger Shayne Wiebe scoring a power-play goal just 35 seconds in, which was only 13 seconds after Prince George’s Nick Buonassisi assumed a seat in the penalty box.
Centre Jake Trask scored three minutes later and defenceman Bronson Maschmeyer made it 4-1 a minute after that. Yes, this one was over.
“I didn’t think we got a very good start,” Smith said. “They came after us hard and they worked hard. The first 10 or 12 minutes they outworked us. After that, I thought we did a real good job.
“That was one of our better third periods playing with the lead and doing the right things.”
The Cougars really weren’t in it after the early moments of the second period; in fact, they ended up being outshot 37-22.
The Blazers went into the game having picked up six points in their previous four games, despite having been outshot 200-112, including 20-0 in three overtime periods.
“We really wanted to cut down on chances in our end,” said Trask, who finished with two goals, giving him five in his sophomore season. “We were giving up a lot of shots and we focused a lot this week on defence.”
They really did tighten up in their zone, led by the likes of defencemen Linden Saip and Maschmeyer, and also played far more in their offensive zone than they have in recent games.
“We pulled together pretty well,” said Saip, who was back in the lineup after sitting out two games with the flu.
Since being a healthy scratch in the season’s second game, Saip steadily has gotten better.
“I feel like I finally have a place,” said the 18-year-old native of Delta. “Everything’s going well. There’s not much I’m fighting. The game is going well for me.”
The game also went well for the Blazers’ reunited No. 1 line, which features C.J. Stretch, who scored the other goal, between Wiebe and captain Tyler Shattock.
The line played the season’s first four games together, but was dismantled — Brett Lyon replaced Wiebe — after a 5-0 loss to the Rockets in Kelowna.
“Sometimes splitting them up helps them,” Smith said. “They realize what they had and they concentrate a little bit more on what we want to do and they’re better when they get back together.”
They only recorded four points but they were more dominant than that. And they get another chance tonight when the Blazers play host to the Chilliwack Bruins. Game time is 7 o’clock.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers were 1-for-9 on the power play; the Cougars were 1-for-3. . . . Kamloops G Justin Leclerc stopped 21 shots as he ran his record to 4-0-1-0. . . . The Daily News Three Stars: 1. Wiebe — he’s a tempo-setter; 2. Willick — goes to the right places; 3. Trask — rewarded for his hard work. . . . The Blazers received a warning — but no fine — from the WHL office after some fans tossed coffee on referees Ryan Benbow and Dan Cowley as they were leaving the ice surface following Sunday’s 4-3 OT loss to the Portland Winterhawks.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
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