It may have only been their third game of the pre-season, but the Prince George Cougars passed their first tough test Friday night at CN Centre.
In a warm-up to the Cougars new ice age, Cougars forward Chance Braid scored twice and added an assist to help lead the Cats to a 5-3 victory against the defending Memorial Cup champion Edmonton Oil Kings in the second weekend of the Western Hockey League's exhibition season.
When the final buzzer sounded, the Cats received a standing ovation from the estimated crowd of 2,000 fans who attended the game.
After three games of exhibition play, the Cougars remain undefeated in regulation time and now sport a record of 2-0-1 as they go into another game against the Oil Kings tonight (7 p.m.) at CN Centre.
It was the Oil Kings first loss in the pre-season who went into Friday's contest with a 2-0 pre-season record, defeating both the Saskatoon Blades and Swift Current Broncos last weekend in St. Albert, Alta.
Friday night at home, Braid scored his second on the game on a goal-mouth scramble to give Prince George a 4-1 lead early in the third period.
Jansen Harkins tallied his first goal when he shoveled a pass he took from Chase Witala and snuck it past Oil Kings netminder Patrick Dea to give the Cougars a 5-1 lead with just a little more than 12 minutes left in the third.
The Oil Kings, without the likes of Henrik Samuelsson and Curtis Lazar, only dressed 21 players, didn't give up though and scored twice in the last six minutes of the game on tallies from Mads Eller and Lane Bauer.
The Cats took a 3-1 lead into the third period thanks to goals from Jari Erricson and Witala in the second period, outshooting the Oil Kings 16-6.
With just under four minutes left in the frame, Witala stole the puck just outside the blue line and put a wrist shot past Edmonton netminder Patrick Dea.
After Brad Morrison stole the puck at the Oil Kings blue line, he passed it to Erricson who skated in and slid the puck under Edmonton's starting netminder Tyler Santos.
The Cougars opened the scoring 10 minutes into the first period when Braid tipped in a shot from just inside the blue line from Witala.
The Prince George goaltending tandem of Ty Edmonds and Tavin Grant split the duties in the crease and together, stopped 20 of the 23 shots they faced.
Cougars fired 37 shots on Edmonton's duo of Dea and Santos.
The Cougars are still carrying a huge roster with 35 names still listed on it.
