Connolly returns for slumping Cougars

The Prince George Cougars’ top forward is back.

This time, Brett Connolly feels different.

Having re-agitated his hip flexor injury twice previously, Connolly has made his third attempt at a return. If he can stay healthy, it’d be a major boost to a slumping Cougars squad sitting at the bottom of the Western Hockey League standings.

They expect Connolly, a 17-year-old Prince George minor hockey product, back in their lineup this evening when they host the Kelowna Rockets at CN Centre. The two teams will meet again to close out the weekend doubleheader on Saturday. Both games are scheduled for 7 p.m.

Connolly had been skating in town while the Cougars were in Saskatchewan for their eastern road swing. He practiced with the BC Hockey Major Midget League’s Cariboo Cougars a couple of times last week.

“I feel better than I did before, so I was trying to push myself and really see how it held up,” Connolly said on Wednesday. “I didn’t have any pain and it felt really well.”

The Cougars are coming off a seven-game road swing in which they finished with zero wins, five losses, an overtime setback and a shootout defeat (0-5-1-1). Although their WHL-worst record of 3-17-1-1 is unappealing, the players and coaching staff were encouraged by their effort in a 3-2 defeat at Saskatoon to the Blades on Saturday, the final game of their road trip. At 18-3-0-3, the Blades have 39 points, more than any other WHL team.

The return of 20-year-old defenceman Dallas Jackson – on Wednesday, Cougars head coach Dean Clark listed Jackson, who injured his ankle during a practice Nov. 12 in Waldheim, Sask., as probable for this evening – would give the Cougars a full lineup for the first time all season. Add in Connolly and a schedule that has the Cougars playing their next six at home, and things appear more positive.

“It’s good for Brett, I think, and our team. I think our guys, I don’t want to say they were waiting for him to come, but I think he provides an element to our team that a lot of other teams in this league don’t have,” Clark said. “That’s hard to defend when you have a world-class player and I don’t want him to come back and think he’s going to put us on his back and carry us. But certainly when you come in and you’re looking at the other, we go into Regina and there’s a Jordan Eberle and we got into Brandon and there’s a (Brayden) Schenn. You go everywhere, there’s a player there that you know you have to be aware of. Well we’ve got Brett Connolly except we haven’t had him.”

Named the Canadian Hockey League Rookie of the Year following a 30-goal, 60-point campaign in 2008-09, Connolly has only played in seven of the Cougars’ 22 games this season. He last saw action during their home game on Oct. 3, a contest which resulted in a 9-2 victory by the visiting Lethbridge Hurricanes.

The Kelowna Rockets, 11-11-1-0 entering their home game against the Portland Winter Hawks on Wednesday evening, are in a three-way battle with the Kamloops Blazers and Chilliwack Bruins for second place in the B.C. Division. The Rockets, the defending WHL champions, defeated the Cougars 5-4 in a shootout in Kelowna in the last encounter between the two teams.

After meeting the Rockets, the Cougars host the Vancouver Giants in a CN Centre doubleheader on Nov. 27 and 28. After a meeting with the Calgary Hitmen on Dec. 2, they wrap up the homestand on Dec. 4 against the Cranbrook-based Kootenay Ice.

“I think our schedule has been good. We haven’t taken advantage of it yet, but it is what it is, and everybody has a trip like that,” Clark said. “I really think that as a team, without getting the results, I think we have done some better things. But we haven’t got a result, so we’re a group that’s trying to start getting some results to put some proof behind what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to say so that we can continually, consistently play the way we want to play.”

Overagers set

The Cougars have met their maximum of three 20-year-old players on their roster. On Tuesday, the team announced that they placed overage forward Tyler Halliday on waivers. The move leaves them with defencemen Dallas Jackson and Garrett Thiessen, and forward Alex Rodgers occupying the three 20-year-old roster spots. The team had as many as five overagers on their roster when the month began, but reduced that figure to four when they made the announcement on Nov. 3 that they traded forward Del Cowan to the Hitmen in exchange for a conditional draft pick.

Under-17 Challenge

On Tuesday, the Cougars announced that defenceman Jesse Forsberg and forward Wilson Dumais were selected to Team West for the 2010 World Under-17 Challenge, scheduled for Dec. 29 to Jan. 4 in Timmins, Ont.

In his rookie season with the Cougars, Forsberg has scored one goal and collected 12 assists for 13 points in 22 games. The Waldheim native was the Cougars’ first pick in the 2008 WHL Bantam Draft, taken 11th overall.

At the time of the announcement, Dumais was leading the Tisdale Trojans of the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League in scoring, with 11 goals and 11 assists in 14 games this season. He played his first WHL game for the Cougars a week ago in Prince Albert.