The Prince George Cougars are going to play the Vancouver Giants six more times this season and that's a good thing.
If those next six games are anything like the end-to-end nailbiter that transpired on the ice Friday, you'd be wise not to miss tonight's rematch at CN Centre.
The Cougars put the wraps on their third-straight home ice victory, a 2-1 win over the Giants that had everything you'd like to see in a hockey game. Great goals, hard hits, terrific goaltending, a couple of evenly-matched scraps and a one-goal game that went right down to the wire.
Backed by goalie Ty Edmonds' best game of the season, the Cougars earned their first points of the season against a B.C. Division opponent in front of a crowd of 2,401, improving their record to 5-4-0-0 with a hardworking win over the Giants, who dropped to 4-3-0-0.
The Cougars struck first with two goals in the second period.
Jari Erricson continued his hot streak as the Cougars goal-scoring leader and with 65 seconds gone in the period took a Chase Witala pass at the side of the net and used his reach to swing a low wrist shot into the far side behind Payton Lee. It was Erricson's seventh of the season in nine games and fifth point in the past two games.
"Going back to peewee I've never been a pure goal-scorer," said Erricson. "I'm fortunate to be getting the chances I'm getting now and I'm enjoying it."
Not long after Erricson scored, with the Cougars on a 5-on-3 power play, pointman Tate Olson took a long wrister that swelled the net for his first of the season.
Heading into Friday, Cougars' penalty-killers had been taking a beating. They started the game ranked dead-last in the WHL, preventing opposition power plays from scoring only 60 per cent of the time.
That woeful record got put to the test 12:43 into the game when Olson clipped the face of Jackson Houck with his stick while falling, which drew blood and a four-minute penalty.
That was Edmonds' cue to seize the role as his team's best penalty-killer, and his performance was Oscar-worthy.
The Giants came armed with the league's third-best power play and they went right to work keeping the Cats hemmed in and forcing Edmonds to come up with three great rapid-fire saves to keep the game scoreless.
Carter Popoff thought he had his seventh goal of the season with a hot shot from the slot with Edmonds scrambling to get back in position, but Edmonds guessed right and had his blocker down on the ice to deflect the shot away.
Then in the second period and the Giants enjoying another manpower advantage, Edmonds had all the angles covered as he ventured out of his crease and kicked out his leg to block a bullet from Houck. The 17-year-old sophomore goalie from Winnipeg wasn't biting when sensational rookie Tyler Benson undressed his check with an outside-inside deke. Edmonds made that stop and dove across to swallow Thomas Foster's rebound attempt.
Edmonds' save off Russian import Dmitry Osipov at the tail end of a third-period Giants' power play was nothing short of scintillating. Osipov had the puck on his stick at the side of the net and somehow Edmonds got back in time to save the day.
Thomas Foster got the Giants close with a one-timer on a perfect setup from Benson, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 bantam draft.
Cougar forwards Tyler Mrkonjic and Aaron Macklin earned high marks for holding off the Giants with their penalty-killing efforts and were rewarded later on when coach Mark Holick offered them some premium power-play time. The Cats ended up killing off all five penalties in the game.
Payton Lee came up with some great goaltending at the other end as well, holding off a determined bunch of Cougars looking to pad their lead.
The 18-year-old from Cranbrook dove out of his comfort zone to steal one away from Mrkonjic with 6:30 left on the clock, with the Cats nursing their one-goal lead.
Edmonds turned aside 31 of 32 shots, while Lee made 30 saves in the Giants nets.
Game time tonight is 7 p.m.
