Blazers Take A Pair From PG
Prince George, BC – After a thrilling one goal game the night before, the Kamloops Blazers skated out of Prince George with a convincing 6-2 win Saturday night, sweeping the double header at CN Centre and taking six of eight head to head meetings with the Cougars this season.
The Blazers came away with a 4-3 victory Friday night and picked up where they left off in the first period of game two, with CJ Stretch scoring an unassisted goal with five minutes left in the first period to give the Blazers a 1-0 lead. Stretch took advantage of a Cougar turn-over at the blue line, faked a shot that got defenseman Cody Hobbs out of the way, then rifled a wrist shot blocker side on Joe Caligiuri. Then late in the first, Zak Stebner, who scored two goals Friday, would get his third power play goal of the weekend with a shot inside the right face-off circle that found the top corner, making it 2-0 Kamloops through a period.
The Cougars started the second period on a 4-on-3 power play, but the two Blazers coming out of the penalty box did so at the same time with the puck waiting for them at the Cougar blue line. Those two Blazers just happened to be the leading scorers, with Shayne Wiebe finishing off a 2-on-0 rush on Caligiuri for his 27th goal of the season and a 3-0 Blazer lead just 53 seconds into the middle stanza. The Blazers added to their lead over six minutes later when Jimmy Bubnick finished off a Kenton Dulle pass in the slot for a 4-0 advantage for the visitors. The Cougars would catch a break to get the on the scoreboard when Parker Stanfield turned around in the slot and banked a shot off Stebner’s skate to the back of the goal behind Justin Leclerc to make it 4-1 Kamloops. For Stanfield, that was his 17th goal of the season and first in 11 games. The Cougars fed off that energy and cut the Blazer lead in half before the end of the period. Brett Connolly would notch his team leading 29th goal of the season, scoring on back-to-back nights, with a rocket shot from the left wing off the glove side goal post on the power play, giving the Cougars life, trailing 4-2 through 40 minutes.
But the Blazers would get the only goals of the third, with Stretch and Wiebe both getting their second goals of the night to make the final 6-2 Blazers, the same score in Kamloop’s favour in the season series. Caligiuri, who allowed seven goals to the Blazers two months earlier, gave up six goals on 32 shots in the loss, while Leclerc kept 30 of 32 Cougar shots out of the net. Again special teams let the Cougars down, going 1-for-6 on the power play and not taking advantage of a pair of 5-on-3 power plays, while the Blazers were 2-for-5 a man-up.
The Cougars fall to 24-39-0-2 on the season while the Blazers improve to 30-30-2-4. The Cougars will host the Calgary Hitmen Tuesday night starting at 7:00 at CN Centre. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster at 250-564-5585 or by going online to www.ticketmaster.ca.
