Cougars headed in right direction under Lamb

After posting a 9-10-2-1 record during a shortened season and just over 60 days spent in isolation, Lamb is starting to see his work on the organization and its crop of players payoff. Despite all of the protocols in place, the Cougars showed huge strides in the redirection of this franchise with a young squad showcasing its potential, exceeding all expectations set forth for this team ahead of the hub season.

“My expectations were just ‘wait and see’. I didn’t want to put a lot of pressure either way with being such a young team. But then as we started to get going, we started to gel a little bit and we started to know what we had, there were a lot of positives. And then we could start pushing in the right direction a little bit more because we were a pretty good team.”

With a 24-game schedule, Lamb says it was around that midway mark he felt his players were committed and clicking.

“I always say that around the 10-game mark when you know what you have, but you have to find some chemistry with different players. Probably around 7-10 games we started feeling like we were a pretty good team and we could win at any given time. The chemistry started coming and these young guys were taking huge strides, and for that matter, the older guys were making strides in chemistry with these younger players. We tried to maximize the development the best we could and I think it worked out very well.”

While the players were making strides with their development, Lamb was making strides in implementing a winning culture.

“We really try to push that. We want to get over the top. We want to have a winning culture, but winning doesn’t mean you’re going to go out and win every game. It’s how you act, it’s how you play, it’s how you compete, but that’s the culture we’re really trying to be preaching and it’s coming.”

The work Lamb has been doing is being noticed, as Steven Ellis from Sports Illustrated’s The Hockey News has taken notice of the work being done in Prince George, crediting Lamb with establishing the organization as a destination highly-touted prospects are no longer passing on.

“The thing about these junior drafts, it’s not always the draft order with the best player goes first, the second-best player going 2nd overall. A lot of it is if a player has agreed that if they get picked they will go there. The fact that (Riley) Heidt has gone there is a good sign. You need just one guy who can be a start player and can really draw the attention in from other players.”

With junior destinations like Edmonton and Calgary, Ellis says players have typically gone to these organizations with the cities being major hockey markets. However, he says a lot of players run the risk of getting lost in the fog of the teams that have been competitive for so long.

“You want to be able to, if you’re a good prospect, to shine as much as possible. The fact that this group has a young core, there are opportunities for players to really elevate their stock moving forward, I think this is one where you’ve got to like what they’re building right now and as long as they continue doing that and get a few good drafts over the next couple of years, I think they will be positioning themselves well. They just have to be able to attract that talent.”

Furthermore, Ellis believes the duo between Lamb and Associate Coach Jason Smith are the ones to return the Cougars to the top of the BC Division.

“When you’re in this, if you’re starting at the bottom and you’re trying to go to the top, you continue to build as a group because you see that development and you’re not trying to change philosophies midway through; making mistakes for the future just to make yourself better now. You’ve got to be patient with it but I do think this is a group you just want to stick with at this point.”

And if this past season, as short as it may have been, is any glimmer of what to expect out of the Cougars moving forward, the future is bright.

by Ethan Ready

Cougars headed in right direction under Lamb

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