Cougars setup thrilling final game of regular season with victory over Blazers

Prince George fought off the penalty and then turned the game in their favour, as Koehn Ziemmer dished the puck up to a breaking-loose Riley Heidt, who then put the puck in past Dylan Garand’s glove-side, his ninth goal against the Blazers this season to give the Cougars a 1-0 lead.

The goal was Heidt’s 21st of the season. Ziemmer was credited with the assist on the play at 5:11 into the 2nd period.

Kamloops tried to challenge Heidt was offside during the play, however, the officials reviewed the play and determined the goal was good, resulting in a delay of game penalty to the Blazers.

A few minutes later, rookie Caden Brown forced a turnover right in front of the Kamloops’ net. After a few sacks at the puck on Garand, the puck trickled over to the opposite side of the net to the blade of Connor Bowie’s stick, who popped in the rebound to put Prince George ahead 2-0.

Bowie’s 15th goal of the season was assisted by Brown at 5:11 in the 2nd period.

In the 3rd period, Reese Belton found himself in a tussle in front of the Cougars’ net with Viliam Kmec before lifting his stick and deflecting a Dyaln Sydor shot in past Ty Young to get the Blazers on the board, injecting some life back into the crowd at the Sandman Centre.

Nearly three minutes later, the Kamloops were back for more. Drew Englot fought for the puck infront of Young before putting it in to knot the scoreboard up at 2-2.

However, just 26 seconds later, the Cougars clawed back into the lead. Following a scoring opportunity put Garand out of position, the puck slid to Jonny Hooker. A quick backhanded shot put the Cougars up 3-2.

With the Blazers fighting to get one back, time was against them as Garand was pulled to the bench. Caden Brown forced a turnover inside the final minute of the game near centre ice and beat the defender back to the puck to score the empty-netter.

The Cougars went on to win 4-2 over the Blazers in arguably their biggest game of the season.

With the loss by Kamloops, the Everett Silvertips are crowned as Western Conference champions.

Elsewhere in the playoff chase, the Victoria Royals kept things interesting with a 7-3 win over the Spokane Chiefs to hand themselves two more points to keep on the heels of the playoff picture. The Vancouver Giants managed a single point with an overtime loss against the Kelowna Rockets.

The Cougars guarantee themselves a tie-break game in the event the Spokane Chiefs max out at 53 points in the standings. That scenario would take place if PG loses to Kelowna on Saturday and Spokane defeats the Victoria Royals.

Prince George will board the team bus and venture to Kelowna for a clash against the Rockets on Saturday for their final game of the regular season. Game time is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.

by Ethan Ready

Cougars setup thrilling final game of regular season with victory over Blazers

What's Trending