The Vancouver Giants dropped a tough game on Wednesday night to the Prince George Cougars, blowing a 5-4 lead in the final minutes to lose 6-5 in regulation.

The loss drops Vancouver's record this season to 19-16-4, while the Cougars improve to 24-10-3-2.

The Giants were tied 1-1 after 20 and 3-3 after 40, before grabbing a 5-4 lead 6:40 into period three. Prince George tied the game with under two minutes left on a 6-on-4 power play and then scored the game-winner with only 43 seconds remaining.

"That one hurts tonight for sure just with how it finished off. It's tough to swallow to be honest because there's lots of really good moments in that game and unfortunately we gave up a lead in the third and gave up the game-winning-goal with 30 seconds or whatever was left and the game's done.... We liked our demeanour, our approach tonight for the most part. It's good to see the guys rally back and get that lead and give us a chance to win, but at the end of the day, we fell short here," said Giants associate coach Adam Maglio.

Newcomer Maxim Muranov (9th, 10th) scored a pair of goals in his Giants debut, while Tyus Sparks (5th), Mazden Leslie (8th) and Jaden Lipinski (7th) also found the back of the net.

Viliam Kmec (8th, 9th) struck twice for Prince George, with Riley Heidt (20th), Corbin Vaughan (1st), Terik Parascak (18th) and Ben Riche (24th) each scoring as well.

Sparks opened the scoring for the G-Men less than three minutes in when he put home a rebound from right in front.

Kmec would tie it on an individual effort off the rush, as he drove wide and was able to get to the net and chip home the equalizer.

Leslie gave the Giants a 2-1 lead with a one-timer on a 4-on-3 power play early in period two, but the Cougars would respond with a pair of goals of their own. Heidt redirected in the tying goal of a hard pass from Koehn Ziemmer, and then Vaughan made it 3-2 for Prince George with a one-time blast at the 16:21 mark of period two.

The Giants got a quick response from Muranov, who tied it off a faceoff with a low shot through the five-hole of Ravensbergen, making it 3-3 after 40 minutes.

Kmec put Prince George back in front just 29 seconds into the third period, but yet again Vancouver was quick to equalize with Cameron Schmidt finding Lipinski in the slot 51 seconds later, who made no mistake to tie the contest 4-4.

Muranov scored his second of the night from the bottom of the left circle moments after Jakob Oreskovic hit the crossbar to restore the Giants lead at 5-4.

The Giants would then be called for slashing with only 1:57 remaining in the game, setting up a 6-on-4 power play where Valis set up Parascak in front to tie the game 14 seconds into the man advantage.

In the final minute, Ben Riche stole the puck as the Giants were breaking up ice and quickly spun and fired a low shot that found the back of the net, making it a 6-5 final score.

"[Muranov] was really good tonight. He's a big, heavy body. He's really good around the net, you saw that on his second goal. He gets to hard areas. Really liked his game tonight," Maglio said about Muranov's Giants debut.

Cougars Ben Riche and Kmec claimed the first two stars of the game while Muranov was third.

Giants netminder Brady Smith made 28 saves out of 34 shots while Prince George's Joshua Ravensbergen faced 31 shots and made 26 saves.

The Giants head to Kamloops for a game Friday evening before hosting Kelowna Saturday evening at the Tri-Cities Friday, Jan. 17. Keep up with the team at .