PRINCE GEORGE 8 - VICTORIA 1
It may have been fun and frivolity in the NHL on Friday night during the all-star skills competition. In another hockey story, about 4,700 kilometres to the north of Sunrise, Florida, in Prince George, things continued to get stone-cold serious in the WHL season for the Victoria Royals.
The margin for error grows ever narrower for the Royals.
The 8-1 loss to the host Cougars dumped Victoria into ninth place, two points behind Kelowna in the turtle derby for the eighth and final playoff position in the Western Conference, with the Rockets holding four games in hand. Kelowna beat the Vancouver Giants 5-4 on Friday.
The road to the playoffs for the Victoria Royals literally goes through Prince George. Of the Royals’ 19 remaining regular-season games, six are against the Cougars, including tonight in the rematch at the CN Centre.
“For us, it’s all about the response [in tonight’s rematch],” said Victoria GM and head coach Dan Price, following Friday’s game.
How go these games against the Cougars, probably so goes the Royals season, so this was not a good start to this stretch for Victoria (14-30-5).
The Cougars (20-21-4) are considered underachieving, considering they boast the heralded duo of Koehn Ziemmer and Riley Heidt, the 20th and 26th ranked North American skaters, respectively, for the 2023 NHL draft.
Ziemmer and Heidt scored once each on Friday night as the Royals were just what the hockey doctor ordered in Prince George’s quest to climb to .500.
Caden Brown led the Cougars with two goals. Danish-import Marcus Almquist scored Victoria’s lone goal.
Royals starting goaltender Braden Holt allowed seven of the goals as Prince George unleashed 40 shots.
Tyler Brennan, a fourth-round NHL draft pick of the New Jersey Devils, made 24 saves in goal for the Cougars.
Prince George is well set in the crease. Its other goaltender is Ty Young, a fifth-round draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks. One of the few bright spots for the Royals was its penalty kill, which held the Prince George power play to one-for-seven. But it took a toll in terms of fatigue.
“It was penalty after penalty for us in the second and third periods and that tilted the scoring chances,” said Price.
The Royals power play was zero-for-three.
The Cougars lead the season series against the Royals 3-0 and are 11 points ahead of Victoria with four games in hand.
The Royals injury situation remains a story line as Victoria was again missing San Jose Sharks-signed captain Gannon Laroque, 2022 Canada Under-18 forward Brayden Schuurman and former WHL draft top-10 pick Austin Zemlak.
To make matters worse, the Royals’ leading scorer, Jake Poole, went out of the game Friday in the second period.
Victoria closes out the weekend road trip Sunday in Kamloops against the B.C. Division-leading Blazers.
ICE CHIPS: The Cougars franchise skated as the Victoria Cougars from 1971-72 to 1993-94 in the WHL.
