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Sput
10-02-2006, 10:01 AM
Courtesy of: http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/

Monday, October 2, 2006
Weekend split for Cats
by JIM SWANSON, Citizen Sports Editor

Mike Vandekamp would give just about anything — his closet of Armani suits, his big-screen TV, even his mint-condition collection of autographed Dallas Thompson hockey cards — to ice a healthy hockey club.

Not having that, the head coach of the Prince George Cougars was put through a difficult evening Sunday in Vancouver where the Giants, who have run roughshod over everyone in the WHL this season, lived up to the hype with a 4-1 triumph over the Cougars.

Not once in the 76 WHL regular season games Vandekamp has under his belt has he had a full roster at his disposal. Vandekamp filled out Sunday’s gamesheet without Ty Wishart (concussion), Jesse Dudas (broken knuckle), Nick Drazenovic (broken rib) and Chris Vanduynhoven (broken hand).

Adding to it, Dan Gendur hurt his ankle early against the Giants.

“I’ve coached 81 WHL games, counting playoffs, and not once, ever, have I been able to put our best lineup on the ice,” said Vandekamp, whose team won the first-ever meeting with the Chilliwack Bruins on Saturday, a 5-3 decision.

“It’s getting to be... yeah, it’s frustrating, because as a coach you’d like to see what that would be like. We have a better team than the one we were able to ice tonight, but we’ve had some tough breaks with injuries. We already had some issues going into the weekend, and it got added to.”

Still, Vandekamp thought the night was a good measure of where the Cougars need to be to fully deserve contender status.

“We got to see Vancouver with all hands on deck, and it gives us a chance to see where we have to get to — they’re obviously the best team in this division,” said Vandekamp.

“It’s tough to compare the team we had available to them directly. They have a more polished-looking group than ours and we’ll be patient. But we got off to a poor start, then clawed and battled. Some guys, young guys, stepped up, and played hard.”

Of the injured players, Gendur is the most likely to be active when the Giants, who will play host to the Memorial Cup in May, come north for games Wednesday and Friday — a mid-season three-game series, if you will. But Gendur will have an x-ray done today after swelling goes down.

Not making Sunday easier was the insertion of rookie goaltender Jordan White, who lost his WHL innocence in a tough way. White, 18, gave up a goal to Mario Bliznak 15 seconds into the game, and the Giants had a 3-0 lead after goals by Michal Repik and Jason Reece, who later added his second of the night.

Vancouver defenceman Cody Franson, a plus-8 this season, had three assists as the Giants moved to 5-0.

Cougars centre Brett Robertson, third in league scoring with nine points, was held off the scoresheet, and Vandekamp said even he is dealing with a minor injury that he declined to disclose. Prab Rai had the lone goal (that’s seven WHL goals in his career, but no assists) for the Cougars, now 2-2 and in second spot in the B.C. Division after posting splits on the two opening weekends — one spent at home, one on the road.

White started at the Pacific Coliseum and made 21 saves after Real Cyr, 19, got the nod in the first three games. Overage netminder Scott Bowles was again in street clothes, as was veteran blueliner Curtis Cooper for the fourth-consecutive game.

“It’s not (a final decision on going with the three forwards as the overagers), it’s more a product of where we are with Nick out of the lineup and some scoring depth issues up front,” said Vandekamp.

“We feel we can afford more to juggle (on defence and in goal) than we can up front right now, and that’s why we’ve gone that way the first four games.”

On Saturday, Vandekamp split up the all-20s line of Robertson, Eric Hunter and Jared Walker, using Dana Tyrell with Walker and Robertson and matching Hunter with Greg Gardner and Gendur. Gardner, Walker, Rai, Gendur and Robertson, the latter into an empty net, scored for Prince George.

Myles Stoesz, Donnie Glennie and Mark Santorelli scored for the expansion Bruins. It was a first-period fight with Stoesz that led to Wishart banging his forehead on the ice.

“Hopefully Wishart will be back for Wednesday,” said Vandekamp.

Rookie forward Steven Kajic was a healthy scratch in both games, allowing 16-year-old Randall Groot into the lineup. Patrik Vrana dressed Sunday with Wishart out, and Vladimir Mihalik played his first two Cougars games on the road trip.