Nothing against his character, but the Prince George Cougars must hate Brandon Magee.
At five-foot-nine, 185 pounds, he's not a big guy, but when the 21-year-old Victoria Royals right winger suits against the Cougars, he turns into an absolute beast.
Magee's weapon of choice is his hockey stick and he used it Friday to draw first blood in the opening game of a best-of-seven WHL Western Conference quarterfinal series, scoring three goals and adding an assist to boost the Royals to 5-3 win over the Cougars in Victoria.
The Royals struck for four unanswered goals in the second period to erase a two-goal deficit and never looked back, despite a determined pushback from the Cougars. Magee collected his first of the game, 4:59 into the second, a hummer of a wrist shot that sailed high over the glove of goalie Ty Edmonds.
A minute later, Magee picked up a centring feed from former Cougar centre Alex Forsberg and buried it. Former Calgary Hitmen centre Greg Chase then gave the Royals their first lead with 12:40 gone, finishing off a rink-length rush by splitting the Cougars' defence before he snapped a shot behind Edmonds.
Magee's hat trick goal came after linemate Austin Carroll hit the post while standing alone in the slot, leaving the rebound for Magee, who has made of career of generating offence at the Cougars' expense.
The Cougars made it a one-goal game on the power play, 6:28 into the third period. Kody McDonald caught up to a lead pass from Brad Morrison and the 16-year-old native of Lethbridge broke free for his first WHL playoff goal. McDonald scored nine goals as a rookie in nine different regular season games and the Cougars won all nine of those games. But that string of good fortune for the Cougars ran out Friday.
Taylor Crunk added one more into an empty net to complete the scoring, with an assist from Magee. Magee now has 20 goals and 38 points in 37 games against the Cougars over four seasons.
The Cougars could not have asked for a better start, scoring twice on power plays to take a 2-0 just seven minutes into the game. The Royals got themselves in trouble when Ralph Jarratt and Travis Brown took cross-checking penalties less than two minutes apart. Tate Olson took advantage of the 5-on-3 chance blasting a point shot to open the scoring at 6:04. Chase Witala added to the total 58 seconds later, taking a quick pass from Jari Erricson and tucking the puck past Coleman Vollrath.
"We had a great start to the game and created some chances and made them turn the puck over and they took some penalties and capitalized on two power plays and we had a 2-0 lead after the first period," said Cougars assistant coach Roman Vopat.
"The second period we came out a little bit flat and gave them momentum and gave them room. When you give players like Carroll and Magee room, they will capitalize. We had a little jump in the third period and made it interesting but in the end they scored the empty-netter."
The Cougars ended up 3-for-4 on power plays. The Royals were held without a goal on three power-play chances. Shots ended up 31-25 in favour of the Cougars.
The game attracted 4,629 to the 7,400-seat capacity Save on Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria. Game 2 goes tonight (7:05 p.m., 93.4 FM The Goat).
"This is not a sprint, this is a marathon and this is only Game 1," said Vopat. "If we work as hard as we did in the first period in the remainder of the games, we'll be just fine and we're going to win the series."
The Cougars host Games 3 and 4 next Wednesday and Thursday at CN Centre.
In other playoff results, the Brandon Wheat Kings beat the Edmonton Oil Kings 8-1 in Brandon to tie that series 1-1. All other playoff series results Friday were opening games. The Kootenay Ice knocked off the Hitmen 4-3 in Calgary, the Regina Pats scored a 4-2 home ice win over Swift Current Broncos, the Kelowna Rockets defeated the Tri-City Americans 6-0 in Kelowna and the Everett Silvertips had a 4-1 lead over the Spokane Chiefs late in the third period in Everett.
