Nicolas Petan scored his Western Hockey League leading 43rd goal for the Portland Winterhawks on Friday night.
Colin Jacobs leads the Prince George
Cougars with 43 points this season.
The stats tell the story as the Winterhawks skated to their record 25th road win of the season with a 6-2 win over the Cougars in front of an announced crowd of 1,770 at CN Centre.
With the win the Winterhawks (50-9-1-2) hit the half century mark for victories and will likely maintain their perch on top of the Canadian Hockey League when the weekly
rankings come out next week.
The Cougars fell to 18-35-2-6 this season.
The Everett Silvertips, who had a 21-34-1-4 record prior to Friday's games, were losing 5-1 in Tri City at press time and are sitting in the eighth, and final, Western Conference playoff spot - three points ahead of the Cougars.
Petan had a two-point night for the
Winterhawks, while St. Louis Blues prospect Ty Rattie had two goals, an assist, a hit post and too many breakaways to count.
Seth Jones and Taylor Leier also had two-point nights.
Brendan Lepsic added an assist in the final period to extend his league-leading total to 106 points. Petan moved to 104 points this season. Petan and captain Troy Rutkowski had power play goals to give the Winterhawks a 2-0 advantage and Leier made it 3-0 with 67 seconds left in the first period.
The Cougars caught the visitors snoozing to start the middle frame but could only beat goalie Brendan Burke once as Zach Pochiro found the twine with a power-play goal to make it 3-1 at the midway point.
But the Winterhawks responded as Rattie scored on a shorthanded breakaway and Jones made it 5-1 beating goalie Mac Engel over the shoulder with a wrist shot from the middle of the circle.
Pochiro was the Cougars' most consistent forward all night and the only front-end player to stand out for the home side in the opening period as the Winterhawks outshot the Cats 19-7, partially due to four power-play opportunities.
The 18-year-old was unafraid of the star-power in the Winterhawks lineup and even drew a penalty shot in the third period but couldn't beat Burke through the legs.
Pochiro added an assist late in the third period on Troy Bourke's 11th goal of the season after Rattie scored his 37th goal of the season to make it 6-2.
The Winterhawks outshot the Cougars 43-26. With the 24 saves Burke, son of former NHL goalie Sean Burke, moved closer to the 1,000 save mark of his WHL career with 985.
Cat scratches: Goalie Brett Zarowny (post-concussion), defenceman Joseph Carvalho (MCL) and forward Ryan Hanes (upper body) sat out of Friday's game, as did a healthy Caleb Belter. Derrick Pouliot, selected ninth overall in the 2012 NHL entry draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins, also took in the game from the stands. The Cougars are offering two-for-one tickets for tonight's game against the
Winterhawks. Game time is 7 p.m.
