Coquitlam, BC — The Cariboo Cougars had their eight game win streak snapped with a 6-3 loss to the Vancouver NE Chiefs Saturday in Coquitlam.

 

It was the first loss for the Cats since early January and also breaks a 12-game unbeaten streak. As has often been the case, the Cougars came out of the gate strong and opened scoring thanks to Liam Blackburn’s 32nd of the year. He got a nice stretch feed from Stephen Penner and sped past the Chiefs defenders for a breakaway beating Nick McBride. The Chiefs tied the game at one later in the opening frame before taking a 2-1 lead with just 14 seconds on the clock.

 

The score remained the same until the Chiefs went up 3-1 with seven and a half minutes to go in the middle frame. Blackburn got his second of the game, on the power play two minutes later to cut the lead to one. But once again the home squad got one in the final minute of the period to re-take the two goal lead heading into the third.

 

The Cats started the third much like the first as Braiden Epp scored on a nice feed from Logan Styler just 47 seconds in to make it a one-goal game. But that’s as close as the Cougars would get as the Chiefs scored twice within a minute late in the third to pull away for their first win over the Cougars since November 2010.

 

Nathan Warren took the loss in net, just his seventh of the season as the Cats record stands at 30-8-1 heading into Sunday’s final regular season game. Puckdrop against the Chiefs at Planet Ice is set for 11:45am.