Chase Witala recorded a hat trick and Jansen Harkins scored two goals to lift the visiting Prince George Cougars to a 6-5 win Sunday over the Vancouver Giants.
Harkins picked up his second goal of the game 10:40 into the third period to give the Cougars a two-goal lead but Ty Ronning, with Vancouver goalie David Tendeck on the bench, scored his 18th of the season with 2:10 left on the clock to make it a one-goal game.
The Giants had chances for the equalizer in the dying seconds but Nick McBride was solid in the crease and came up with some big stops to preserve the Cougars' victory. His diving save to rob Chase Lang right at the end of the second period kept the teams tied 4-4.
Cougar goals 51 seconds apart from Justin Almeida (the first of his WHL career) and Witala chased Giant goalie Ryan Kubic to the bench just four minutes into the game. Kubic, a 17-year-old rookie from St. Andrews, Man., posted back-to-back shutouts for the Giants last week and did not allow a goal in 210:11 of playing time until that streak ended in a 3-1 loss Saturday in Everett.
Tendeck replaced Kubic and the Giants responded by putting two pucks in behind McBride. Pointman Dylan Plouffe scored at 15:59 of the first period and Alec Baer got into the act, 1:19 into the second.
Not long after, the Cougars' power play connected on its first chance of the game when Witala was set up in front by linemate Brogan O'Brien. Lang made it a 3-3 game at 5:19 and Giants captain Tyler Benson gave Vancouver the lead with his seventh of the season just past the midway point of the game. But Witala evened the count 3-3 with his 14th of the season and third of the night, roofing in a pass from Brad Morrison. Witala assisted on the winning goal for a four-point night.
It was the first hat trick scored by a Cougar since Zach Pochiro connected for a three-goal game April 4 in the playoffs against Victoria.
The Giants were playing their third game in three nights, having started the weekend at home Friday with a 4-0 shutout win over Kootenay. But they had plenty left in the tank, outshooting Prince George 38-27.
"I thought we started well, we chased their starter out of the net after two quick goals but then we seemed to relax," said Cougars assistant coach Roman Vopat in a post-game radio interview.
"We thought they were going to go away, but when you have a team that's 16 points behind us they have nothing to lose. They did not go away, they worked extremely hard and I thought most of the game they were even the better team. But in the end, we put six pucks in the net and they put in only five."
Their fifth-straight win allowed the Cougars (17-9-1-1) to pull even with the Seattle Thunderbirds into third place in the WHL Western Conference standings, each with 36 points. The Cougars/Thunderbirds are four points behind the second-place Victoria Royals and nine back of the league-leading Kelowna Rockets. Vancouver (8-18-2-2) remains last in the conference.
The Cougars hadn't played since Friday in Everett, where they shut out the Silvertips 3-0, backed by a 27-save performance from goalie Ty Edmonds. They are back at home Tuesday night at CN Centre, where they host the last-overall Kootenay Ice (6-23-2-1).
LOOSE PUCKS: Cougars defenceman Joe Carvalho, a native of Burnaby, returned to his old stomping grounds at the Pacific Coliseum Sunday, playing in his 201st WHL game. The 20-year-old was originally credited the Cougars' fifth goal but it was later determined Harkins tipped it in. Carvalho has now gone 59 games without a goal.
