Cougars shut out Raiders 5-0
The WHL leading Prince George Cougars came to the Art Hauser Centre on Saturday night and blanked the Prince Albert Raiders 5-0.
The Cougars opened the scoring 6:07 into the first period. After a turnover at the Prince George blue line, Nicholas McLennan led a two on one rush into the Raiders end. Down the left wing, McLennan elected to shoot, and he beat Chase Coward blocker side for his first career WHL goal to give the Cougars a 1-0 lead.
At the 17:07 mark of the first period, a handful of penalties were handed out after Keaton Dowhaniuk rode Sloan Stanick hard into the boards. Dowhaniuk was handed a five minute major for checking to the head and a game misconduct. Harrison Lodewyk stepped up for Stanick, dropping the gloves with Dowhaniuk and taking him down to the ice. After all of the penalties were sorted out, the two sides briefly played three on three hockey, with Matej Kubiesa and Hudson Thornton already in the box for penalties called earlier in the frame.
The Raiders outshot the Cougars 16-15 in a fast paced first period, but Prince George took a 1-0 lead heading into the middle frame.
Prince George scored twice in a span of 19 seconds in the second period, and it started with Zac Funk on the powerplay at the 6:29 mark. Funk ripped a shot from the slot home for his 15th goal of the season to make it a 2-0 game. Rookie forward Terik Parascak followed up with his 18th goal of the campaign to make it a 3-0 game, which led to Jeff Truitt calling a timeout to regroup his squad.
The Raiders had a few chances of their own to find the back of the net, but Joshua Ravensbergen stopped all 11 shots he faced in the middle frame, as the Cougars took a 3-0 lead into the third period.
Koehn Ziemmer and Oren Shtrom added a goal each for Prince George in the late stages of the third period, as the Cougars went on to win by a 5-0 final. Ravensberger was the star of the show for Prince George, stopping all 38 shots he faced in the contest.
The Raiders (9-8-0-1) start their longest road trip of the season on Wednesday night in Lethbridge.
