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.
鈥淲e were flat to start,鈥� summarized Giants Associate Coach Adam Maglio.
鈥淲e had guys that were out of position and then losing battles, and before you know it, we鈥檙e down a few real quick.鈥�
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鈥檚 performance as 鈥渙utstanding.鈥�
鈥� 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.鈥�
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 91原创 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鈥檒l play their fourth game of the week against Prince George at home at 4 p.m.
