Kody McDonald was the last shooter standing and he made it count.
The 19-year-old Prince George Cougars winger fired the shootout winner in the fourth round to give the Cougars a 3-2 road win Friday over the Seattle Thunderbirds at Showare Center in Kent, Wash. Jansen Harkins also beat 16-year-old rookie goalie Carl Stankowski in the shootout. Matthew Wedman scored for Seattle in the shootout.
Cats goalie Ty Edmonds turned in a stellar performance, making 23 saves to improve his record to 6-1.
The Cougars needed a second-period comeback, to recover from a 2-0 deficit. They scored two goals in the middle frame to force overtime, their first WHL game experience with the new three-on-three OT format. The Cats successfully killed off an overtime penalty to Jesse Gabrielle in the five-minute extra session and Edmonds was at his best at that point of the game.
“Our penalty kill came up huge and Eddy was there in the end,” said Cougars head coach Richard Matvichuk, in the post-game broadcast. “He was fantastic. He’s a 20-year-old and he has to be one of your best players and he has to be your best penalty-killer and he was.”
Seattle opened the scoring, 8:32 into the game when the Cougars failed to clear their own zone. Wedman picked off the puck in the high slot and set up Nolan Volcan for his second of the season. The T-birds made it 2-0 on a power play 20 seconds into the second period. Sami Moilanen, an import from Finland, was set up by winger Ryan Gropp, playing his first game for Seattle since retuning this week from the AHL.
The Cougars got back on even terms when their power play struck twice in the second period. Jesse Gabrielle was set up by Brad Morrison for his fourth of the season, cashing in a shot from the face-off circle with 8:47 gone in the period. Harkins drew a penalty a few minutes later and connected for his first of the season to knot the score.
“In the first period we were turning pucks over and tried to be too fancy and it doesn’t work,” said Matvichuk. “We have to chip pucks and use our size and our speed and we did that in the second period. I thought that second period was probably our best period of the year.”
The Cougars successfully killed off a penalty late in the game handed to Josh Anderson, who came to the defence of teammate Brad Morrison, who was flattened by an open-ice hit from Turner Ottenbreit.
Stankowski made 23 saves in his second career WHL start.
The Cougars went 2-for-4 on the power play while Seattle was 1-for-5.
LOOSE PUCKS: The Cougars play their next game tonight in Kennewick, Wash., against the Tri-City Americans… Cougars captain Sam Ruopp left the game at the midway point after taking a stick up high in a collision with Gropp. The Cats defenceman did return to action early in the third period.
