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scamperdog
10-11-2006, 06:41 AM
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Wednesday, October 11, 2006


www.princegeorgecitizen.com
Swift Current swamps Cats


by JIM SWANSON, Citizen Sports Editor

Oh, that’s right. Scott Bowles is still a goaltender on this team.

And, oh, right again, they have a new star forward in Devin Setoguchi.

One more — that’s correct, the Cougars have a first-round NHL draft pick, Ty Wishart, who is supposed to anchor the defence.

Those three, with a mix of other worthy pieces, might be enough on their own to win a WHL hockey game for the Prince George Cougars. But with more collective rust on that trio than a junked rail car, and little in the way of assistance from those around them, the Swift Current Broncos were sitting in the cat-bird seat Tuesday and cruised to a 4-0 victory at CN Centre.

Wishart hadn’t played in three games because of a concussion, while Setoguchi, acquired from Saskatoon last week, hadn’t seen game action all season because of lingering knee inflammation. Bowles, meanwhile, was on the ice for a meaningful contest for the first time since late March, when the Cats were bounced from the WHL playoffs by the Vancouver Giants.

On all three, the rust showed. Or perhaps they were just a reflection of their complacent teammates, who showed more jump in the third period after the coach peeled paint in the dressing room in the second intermission.

“Right now, we’re a group of individuals going in all sorts of individualistic directions,” said Cougars head coach Mike Vandekamp.

“That’s what we talked about (after the game). We have a lot of ‘I’m going to be a 40-goal guy,’ and ‘I’m going to be a 30-goal guy.’ At the end of the day, we’re a zero-goals-in-two-games team. If they need any more lessons about how good they are, there’s the lesson.

“We’re still pretty disorganized, especially on the back end. We’re patient enough to know what all the reasons are right now. We threw out a whole new lineup today and it didn’t work that well. It’ll be nice to get some things settled down and let guys get comfortable with each other.”

Vandekamp classified Bowles, Wishart and Setoguchi all as OK. Not stellar, not awful. Strikingly average.

“It’s going to have to keep going like that, because (injured defenceman Jesse) Dudas will have to go through his first game back, (Chris) Vanduynhoven will have to knock rust off and (Vladimir) Mihalik is getting rusty by the day,” said Vandekamp, his team now at 2-4-0-1.

“It will be a long, scrappy start for this crew. These lessons are good ones to learn early in the year, as long as you learn them.”

Dudas and Vanduynhoven are out with hand injuries. Mihalik has a separated shoulder.

Bowles, 20, will have anxious times now until Thursday’s deadline to be down to three overagers. Jared Walker sat out Tuesday to give Bowles his first shot at active duty, and it’s a certainty one of those two — Eric Hunter and Brett Robertson are safe — will be moving on in the next 48 hours.

“It was good to get back in the net — the team was expecting great things out of me and I wasn’t able to produce,” said Bowles, who made 17 saves but couldn’t be faulted for the loss — he can’t be expected to score goals, too.

“The team’s had excellent communication with me as the situation has unfolded. I’ve practiced and worked out hard, and I’ve done what I needed to do to be a player on this hockey team. It’s going to come down to numbers and where they need help right now.”

The Broncos put a 2-0 lead in their pockets after one period. The first goal was a gimme for David Stieler, the first in the WHL career of the Czech centre, because Cougars defenceman Curtis Patterson didn’t see a wounded rebound laying just outside the crease.

The second was pure penalty-killing breakdown as Daniel Rakos, another worthy import, chipped a loose puck over a sprawled Bowles. Rakos had all day to get two shots away.

Levi Nelson and Kyle Bortis added goals in the final 40 minutes of a game where the result never seemed in doubt. Kyle Moir made 26 saves for his second shutout of the season, his toughest stop on a third-period breakaway for Dana Tyrell. Had Tyrell scored, it would’ve cut the lead to 4-1.

The rust of this Cougars team goes beyond the recently healthy, or the recently rediscovered. Prince George has surrendered the first goal in five of seven games so far this season, begging the question of whether the Cougars are sufficiently ready to go at the opening faceoff.

“Here we are again, shut out at home again, our fourth-straight home loss, and we have to come back to the slow start,” said Hunter, the Cougars’ captain.

“It seems as soon as we get down we want to reinvent the systems, guys trying to get it done their own way. I’m sure most of the guys in the room will tell you they’re prepared, but obviously we’re not. Whether it’s from our leaders... I don’t know. When you start pouting and yipping at each other on the bench, you’re lost. We did some of that in the second period and I thought that’s what lost us the game.”

Adding to the frustration — the Cougars have surrendered 13 unanswered goals, nine of those by the powerful Vancouver Giants. A scoring drought in excess of 132 minutes had Vandekamp mixing his lines by the second period, looking for any spark he could find.

“We addressed that before the game, making sure we’re more ready and focused to start,” said Vandekamp. “Right now we don’t have a lot of confidence and you get going in a bad direction when you’re a guy struggling with that.”

The Cougars will leave Thursday for Alberta – good timing, for certain – where a six-game road trip starts Friday in Medicine Hat. The journey will take them through Lethbridge, Cranbrook, Kelowna and Tri-City in a nine-day span that ends with two games against the Americans.

KITTY LITTER – Announced attendance was a sickly 2,477. That’s just 24 more souls than the all-time low, a Jan. 4 game last season against Kelowna that drew 2,453... A hit by Prab Rai on Dane Crowley early in the second period knocked the veteran defenceman out of the game with what looked like a separated shoulder... Dean Chynoweth, the head coach and GM of the Broncos, was not on the bench Tuesday because he was at the GM meetings in Calgary. Dave Hunchak, the assistant coach who has worked with the national junior team as a video coach, took over... The Broncos were 2-10 on the power play. The Cats were ugh-for-nine... Vancouver Giants head coach Don Hay did not record his 300th WHL head coaching win a week ago at CN Centre, as was reported. The Giants mistakenly made that claim, but statistics now show he reached the milestone on the weekend, not in Prince George... Former Cougars goaltender Kevin Swanson, an all-star after being dealt to Kelowna in 1998, is now the goaltending consultant for the Broncos... The Giants traded goaltender Tommy Tartaglione, 18, to the Regina Pats on Tuesday for a fourth-round bantam pick.

KBF
10-11-2006, 12:32 PM
Where did all this big offense go? Seems like all the yacking has made the players believe their own hype. I really don't think Vandencamp is the guy, he's a junior B coach, no way should the Cougars be this horrible with the talent they got.

Sput
10-11-2006, 02:01 PM
Where did all this big offense go? Seems like all the yacking has made the players believe their own hype. I really don't think Vandencamp is the guy, he's a junior B coach, no way should the Cougars be this horrible with the talent they got.


I posted this in another thread, but I think I can paste it here too....it should help explain.


I saw last nights game as a lot of bad puck luck. They couldn't get a break or a bounce to save them at all. I felt the jump was there, the passes were a lot crisper and on target than they were either night against Vancouver, but everything just worked against them. Pucks poked into someones feet, shots deflected to far/high/wide, shots that they blocked bouncing out right to a Bronco, just terrible luck really. Tyrell and Gooch both had great breakaways in the third, bith times Moir turned them away. The puck also seemd to stick to the ice a couple times on Hunter, both in the first and the third periods.

There were more changes to the lineup than just inserting Seto and Wishart too. Walker was scratched so Bowles could get a start, so that too changed the makeup of the forwards. Vandy had some line combos on the ice that he likely won't have again. Wish and Seto were both late decisions to play, so that in itself made for interesting linemates.

My opinon right now is that the best thing that can happen is the team going on the road. They will all get a chance to come together as a team, get to know each other a lot more, and everyone gets to feel comfortable as a team. There were a number of returnees from last year's team, but there are more than a few new faces as well. Hunt, Redden, Klym, Groot, Robertson, Setoguchi, Vrana (English alone is one of his challenges), Grossman, Deagle, Kajic and White are all new to the Cougars. Include Mahalik in there thats 12 new faces to suddenly need to be comfortable with. Thats over half the team. When you think about it...Vancouver has 19 returnees from last season, and most of them have also been together for 3-4 years as a team, with no changes in bench bosses, GM's, trainers nothing. Very stable. The Cougars haven't had that luxury at all. I still say give them some more time and they will gel as a team once everyone gets to know the other guy, and the injury list gets shorter. I'd sooner have these problems now, in the first 10-12 games than I would the last 10 of the season.

dondo
10-11-2006, 02:50 PM
this cracked me up....


and (Vladimir) Mihalik is getting rusty by the day,” said Vandekamp

I'm not sure guys -- I think Vandekamp just has a bunch of players playing as individuals (which he said) and that's death for a team. Hockey at its heart is a team sport and from what I have seen this season so far the Cougars have lacked effort and lacked organization.

I think its as said above -- they are beleiving their own advance press instead of seeing how they fit into the whole. I think they can get out it, but right now they are not playing as a unit and it might be a matter of too-many Chiefs not enough Indians -- if everyone is going to the slot to receive the pass, who's grinding it out in the corners? The three games we've played versus PG I had yet to see that kind of work ethic and that's not the coach that's the players not taking responsibility for themselves, but more-so for their teammates.

Also the Broncos are a hot young team and they have depth and a team work ethic, as well as solid 'tending. I know the BC Divison is weak but the Cougars don't seem (to me) to be making an effort to take advantage of that.