If they could play it over again, the Prince George Cougars would want to redo the first eight minutes of Sunday's game in Victoria.
With a national TV audience tuned in, the Cougars soiled the nest.
They gave up three goals to the Victoria Royals in the first 7:49 of game action and lost 4-3.
They almost had enough to complete the comeback in a three-goal second period which also featured two missed Cougar breakaways. But there wasn't early enough push-back from the Cats' offence in the third period and with their second-straight loss in the home of the Royals it was a wasted opportunity to make up some lost ground for the Cougars in the Western Hockey League standings.
Former Cougar forward Alex Forsberg got Victoria on the scoreboard 4:41 into the game, when he snuck in behind goalie Nick McBride just off the post and got his stick on the rebound after Ralph Jarratt shot from 20 feet away.
At 5:55 of the first, Victor Bobylev made it a 2-0 count, and less than two minutes later the Russian import fed a cross-ice pass to linemate Jack Walker and McBride was slow to react, giving the Royals a 3-0 lead, much to the delight of a partisan crowd of 6,769 at Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena.
McBride, who allowed three goals on nine shots, was replaced by Ty Edmonds, who made 21 saves on 22 shots. The one that beat Edmonds came on a Victoria power play, 8:18 into the second period, when defenceman Scott Walford scored his first of the season to make it a 4-0 game.
Brad Morrison gave the Cougars some life in the second period, collecting his 27th and 28th goals of the season, and Luke Harrison also scored, on a perfect feed from behind the net from Jared Bethune. But that's as close as it got for the Cougars (36-29-3-2).
The Cougars were outshot 12-2 in the first period and 7-2 in the the third. The shot count favoured the Cougars 14-8 in the second period
"You have to be able to play for 60 minutes or you're not going to win," said Cougars assistant coach Roman Vopat, in the post-game radio show on CIRX FM 94.3. "In the third period we only got (two) shots on net, and you're not going to score goals in this league on just (two) shots."
The Royals beat the Cats 6-2 Friday in Victoria and Sunday's win gave the Royals a 5-3-0-0 record in the season series.
The Cougars have just two games left this season and both are against the team they're trying to catch to retake third place in the B.C. Division. The Kamloops Blazers (36-25-5-4) are now four points ahead of the Cats and will need just one more point, either Friday night in Kamloops or Saturday in Prince George, to lock up third. The Blazers reeled off their seventh consecutive win Saturday night in Kamloops, defeating the Vancouver Giants 2-1 in overtime.
