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Cougars beat Royals to claw back into series

PRINCE GEORGE 4 VICTORIA 2 (Victoria leads series 2-1) Prince George Cougars’ fans waited more than four years to witness a home Western Hockey League playoff game so you know they took great pleasure in walking away from the CN Centre with a victory
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Cougars forward Jari Erricson deflects a shot in front of Royals goalie Coleman Vollrath during the second period of Game 3 on Wednesday night at the CN Centre in Prince George.

PRINCE GEORGE 4

VICTORIA 2

(Victoria leads series 2-1)

Prince George Cougars’ fans waited more than four years to witness a home Western Hockey League playoff game so you know they took great pleasure in walking away from the CN Centre with a victory on Wednesday night.

Sam Ruopp’s goal at 7:58 of the second period held up as the game-winner as the Cougars built up a 3-0 lead and defeated the visiting and slow-starting Victoria Royals 4-2, out-shooting the visitors 42-24.

The victory — the first post-season triumph for the Cougars’ fans since April 25, 2007 — cuts the Royals’ best-of-seven opening series lead to 2-1 with Game 4 going tonight in Prince George. It’s a key swing game that can tip the scales in Victoria’s favour or turn it into a best-of-three.

Game 5 goes Saturday at 7 p.m. at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

It was a sluggish start as the Royals fell behind before showing some life two-thirds of the way through the second period.

“Give them credit,” Royals head coach Dave Lowry said of the Cougars. “They came out hard early and we knew that would be the case. We didn’t have the right answer.”

As for Game 4, Lowry said: “Every game is a swing game in the playoffs. Our plan tonight was to come in here and win a hockey game and we didn’t get what we wanted.”

>>> GET MORE VICTORIA ROYALS COVERAGE

The talk coming into Game 3 was the success of the Cougars’ power play, which went 5-for-10 in the opening two games in Victoria. Oddly, it was the P.G. penalty kill that opened the scoring as Chase Witala scored a shorthanded goal at 13:23 of the first period.

“That was the power play trying to settle in,” Lowry said of his special-teams’ unit that was 0-for-5 in the first two games. “I thought we got that back and that wasn’t the difference in tonight’s game.”

Jari Erricson did make it 2-0 on a Cougars’ power play just 2:22 into the second period as Brandon Fushimi was sent off for cross-checking. The Royals were being out-shot 20-6 overall just a few minutes into the stanza.

Ruopp then sifted a screened shot past Coleman Vollrath 5:36 later for the 3-0 advantage as the Royals were on their heels.

“We need to get more pucks to the net, get more traffic to the scoring areas,” stressed Lowry.

Tyler Soy finally recorded the Royals’ first power-play goal of the series, snapping an 0-for-7 run at 13:22 of the second and just 44 seconds later Logan Fisher cut it to 3-2.

Brad Morrison tipped a puck by Vollrath to make it 4-2 at 6:06 of the third period to end the scoring.

Royals forward Brandon Magee, who had five goals and six points over the first two games, was held pointless, but he wasn’t alone as fellow 20-year-old Austin Carroll was also skunked.

“At this time of the year we expect our best players to be our best players, but you would also like contributions from everybody in your lineup,” said Lowry.

ICE CHIPS: Former Cougar Alex Forsberg did have an assist for Victoria, as did Greg Chase, but the latter took a questionable goaltender interference call late in the second and was then handed a 10-minute misconduct for arguing it. … Cowichan product Josh Anderson saw action on the Cougars’ blue-line for the first time in the series.

mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com