Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

Ams look to bounce back against Cougars

By Annie Fowler, Herald staff writer

The Tri-City Americans saw their nine-game win streak melt away at the hands of the Chilliwack Bruins on Wednesday night.

Now comes the question of whether they put it behind them and move on when they play at Prince George tonight and Saturday.

"We didn't play desperate. We weren't ready to get after it," Tri-City coach Jim Hiller said of the 5-2 loss at Chilliwack. "You hope you learn from things like this. We have been on a great run. Now we're on a losing streak and are starting all over again. We'll see what we've learned when the puck drops in Prince George."

Tri-City (11-3-0-0, 22 points) swept the four-game series against Prince George last year and has won six straight against the Cougars. In the last five years, the Americans have won 17 of 20 games vs. Prince George.

Despite Wednesday's loss, the Americans still own the league's best winning percentage (.786).

"They have a great amount of team speed and that style of game is the hardest thing to defend against," said first-year Cougars coach Dean Clark. "They come at you in waves; that's why they are getting 40 to 50 shots a night. They have always had good goaltenders there. You pay your dues and you watch. Now when it's time to step up, you show them what you've got."

And Drew Owsley had done just that. He leads the league with 11 wins, is second with a 2.45 goals against average and third with a .915 save percentage.

Brendan Shinnimin, who was selected to play for Team WHL in the Subway Series against Russia in late November, leads the Americans in scoring with 10 goals and 14 assists and ranks fourth in league scoring. Adam Hughesman follows with seven goals, while Johnny Lazo, Justin Feser and Jordan Messier each have six.

The Cougars (3-10-0-0), who ended an eight-game slide last week with a 5-4 shootout win over Chilliwack, just underwent a goalie change as veteran James Priestner informed the team a couple of weeks ago that he had lost his desire to play.

Priestner left the team Tuesday, and Prince George filled his roster spot with Hudson Stremmel, who left Colorado College to play in the WHL.

But goaltending is just one of many issues Clark has had to deal with lately. Injuries have put a few of his top players on the shelf, and the team still is battling the flu.

"We've kind of got through the goalie thing, but we've had the injuries go through us and we've had the flu bug hit us," Clark said. "Unfortunately, the guys who were hurt, were our better players. We aren't here feeling sorry for ourselves. We have to work hard to get better and we hope to improve this weekend."

The Cougars have scored just 29 goals this season and are missing left wing Brett Connolly, who has been limited to seven games because of a hip injury. Last year as a rookie, the Prince George native led the Cougars with 30 goals and 30 assists.

This season, the Cougars are led by Slovakian forward Marek Viedensky, who has two goals and eight assists, and Alex Rodgers, with a team-high five goals and four assists.

"We think we are better than our record, but we haven't had our team yet," Clark said. "We haven't seen what we are going to look like.

"We have 10 17-year-old players on our team. Our young guys are good players. We're not only teaching them, but everyone on the team what it takes to be successful every day. It's easy to feed off success. We just haven't had a lot of sustained success in Prince George."

w Annie Fowler: 582-1574; afowler@tricityherald.com