Prince George Cougars came flying out of the gate on Saturday night, March 9, with four goals in less than eight minutes, ultimately leading to a 6-3 victory over the Vancouver Giants at the CN Centre.
“We were flat to start,” summarized Giants Associate Coach Adam Maglio.
“We had guys that were out of position and then losing battles, and before you know it, we’re down a few real quick.”
Goaltender Matthew Hutchison stepped up for the Giants on Saturday, as he stopped 30 of 32 shots in relief of Brett Mirwald.
Maglio described Hutchison’s performance as “outstanding.”
” I thought he did a really, really good job in a tough circumstance coming in, where we were in that game and how we were playing, and he kept us in it.”
Providing the Giants goals on Saturday was Ty Halaburda, who reached the 20-goal plateau for the second straight year, rookie Jakob Oreskovic (third) and Adam Titlbach (eighth).
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The Cougars got two goals each from Ondrej Becher and Zac Funk, plus single tallies from Riley Heidt and Matteo Danis.
Becher opened the scoring 1:19 into the contest off the rush with a wrist shot from the high slot.
Under three minutes later, Becher doubled the lead after he stole the puck in the Giants zone and ripped a shot from the left circle to make it 2-0.
Vancouver responded a minute later when Logen Hammett found Halaburda in the slot to cut the Cougars lead to 2-1.
Prince George went right back to work, scoring a pair of goals within a span of 19 seconds just past the seven minute mark to increase their lead from 2-1 to 4-1.
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Cougars scored on the power play midway through the second to make it 5-1, just minutes before Danis shovelled home a rebound on the back end to make it 6-1 Prince George at 10:16 of the middle frame.
Vancouver did score twice in the third, first when Oreskovic fired a quick snap shot from the left dot that beat Ravensbergen short side and then when Titlbach finished off a pass from London Hoilett off the rush, but 6-3 eventually stood up as the final score.
Prince George out shot Vancouver 39-16.
Giants have six games left on the schedule, four of which are at home, starting on Tuesday, March 12, against the tenth-place Tri-City Americans at 7 p.m.
Friday, they host the Kamloops Blazers at the Langley Events Centre at 7 p.m., before hitting the road for a rematch with Kamloops on Saturday night at 6 p.m. On Sunday, they’ll play their fourth game of the week against Prince George at home at 4 p.m.
