Photo Courtesy: James Doyle

By Ethan Ready

Cougars fall in hard-fought Game 4

Winterhawks complete four-game sweep of Cougars

Apr 27, 2022 | 9:24 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — Portland completed the four-game sweep over the Prince George Cougars as the Winterhawks took a hard-fought Game 4 by a final score of 2-1.

Taylor Gauthier, after not making the playoffs for the first four seasons of his junior career, was between the pipes for each of the four wins, making a 29-save performance Wednesday night.

Tyler Brennan, facing an abundance of shots from Portland, made 40 saves in Game 4.

James Stefan and Luke Schelter scored for Portland. Hudson Thornton scored the lone goal for the Cougars.

Portland opened the scoring nearly 8:30 into the first period. James Stefan tallied his second of the postseason after Portland broke out on a two-on-one with Viliam Kmec trailing in behind. A quick shot off the pass from Gabe Klassen put the Winterhawks ahead 1-0, marking the fourth time this series Portland scored the opening goal.

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A few minutes later, Portland was on the doorstep knocking on Tyler Brennan’s door again as Luke Schelter tapped in his team’s second of the period to put Portland ahead 2-0.

With two minutes remaining in the period, Koehn Ziemmer looked to get the offence active, carrying the puck in from the blue-line and driving towards the net, getting hauled down and crashing hard into the end boards. He got up favouring his right shoulder and was taken to the Cougars’ dressing room.

The period ended with the Winterhawks putting 16 shots on Tyler Brennan while Prince George was only able to put seven pucks against Taylor Gauthier.

In the second period, the Cougars found their offence.

Short-staffed on forwards, defenceman Hudson Thornton stepped up and brought the much-needed scoring touch after a shot from Jonny Hooker crept close to the goal-line before getting swiped out by a Winterhawks defender. Thornton stepped up and fired a shot low glove-side on Gauthier to get Prince George on the scoreboard and bite into the Portland lead.

At the end of the second period, the Winterhawks continued to outshoot the Cougars, putting 34 shots on Brennan compared to PG’s 18 on Gauthier.

Ryker Singer nearly knotted things up for the Cougars, showing some patience before teeing up a slap shot, which beat Gauthier, but couldn’t tuck itself inside the post enough as it rang off the pipe.

Just the second penalty of the game was handed out in the final period of regulation following a high-sticking call on Cross Hanas. Prince George pieced together a few chances with the man-advantage but none that found the back of the net as Portland fought off the penalty and got back to five-on-five hockey with five and a half minutes remaining in the period.

With 1:46 remaining, Cougars’ head coach Mark Lamb brought Brennan to the bench in favour of the sixth skater. Brennan had stopped 40 of the 42 shots he faced, putting forth another strong performance between the pipes.

Cross Hanas was sent off for delaying the game after flipping the puck over the glass, putting the Cougars on a six-on-four power-play for the remainder of the game, but the Cougars couldn’t get one more past their former goalie.

The Winterhawks completed the four-game sweep with a 2-1 victory over the Cougars, punching their ticket to the Western Conference Semi-Final.