Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver has long been a Halloween house of horrors for the Prince George Cougars.
In the previous four seasons, the Cougars won just two of 16 games in the home of the Vancouver Giants,
Sunday afternoon, with Ty Edmonds as the executioner, the Cougars took a swipe at exorcizing that demon.
Edmonds made 40 saves as the first star in a 3-1 win over the Giants to help the Cougars post their first road victory this season in three tries. Dating back to the 2011-12 season, the Cougars' record was an abysmal 2-12-0-2 in Vancouver. Edmonds hadn't won there since December 2013.
"He had an incredible game - he was our big reason why we won tonight," said Cougars assistant coach Roman Vopat, in the postgame radio show. "He's confident and he knows he's got Mack (Shields) at his back in case something goes wrong. They're such a good team those two, we wouldn't be where we are without those two."
Aaron Boyd, Brogan O'Brien and Jesse Gabrielle (into an empty net), took care of the scoring for the Cougars, who improved their third-place WHL B.C. Division record to 6-5-0-0), two points ahead of the fourth-place Giants (5-5-1-1).
Boyd kick-started the Cougars' offence 7:11 into the game with his first goal of the season, when he tipped in a shot from winger Kolby Johnson, the first point of Johnson's WHL career.
Brogan O'Brien continued to hold a hot hand, scoring his fourth of the season 6:42 into the second period. O'Brien centred a new-look Cougar line with Jesse Gabrielle and Chase Witala and those two both assisted on the goal, O'Brien's third in the past three games.
The Giants fired 20 shots at Edmonds in the first period and the count was up 38 when Ty Ronning finally put one past the Cougar goalie, 9:29 into the third period to cut the lead in half. It was Ronning's team-leading eighth of the season.
The Giants were forced to kill a penalty late in the game when Dmitry Osipov got caught holding an opponent's stick with 2:46 left. Goalie Payton Lee got to the bench after the penalty expired but that backfired when the O'Brien and Gabrielle broke in on the empty net and Gabrielle got the pass for his ninth goal of the season - tops on the Cougars.
The Giants outshot the Cougars 41-33.
"It was a perfect road game," said Vopat. "Our players executed our game plan, which was to out the puck behind their D and make them work and make them turn around and finish the checks. When a defenceman is under pressure he's going to turn it over so we did that for 60 minutes and that's what makes a big difference."
The Cougars were without RW Bartek Bison (who served the second of a two-game suspension) and were also missing D Tate Olson (out with an upper-body injury suffered in Friday's 5-2 loss in Kelowna). C Jordan Ross returned to action after missing five games with a lower-body injury. He centred a line with Johnson and Boyd.
The Cougars boarded the bus Sunday for Kamloops, where they face the Blazers for the first time this season on Wednesday. On Friday the Cats will be back in Kelowna to take on the Rockets.
