The Prince George Cougars did their best to rope-a-dope the Victoria Royals before 4,244 fans on Friday night at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. It was good enough for a point but the victory went to the more deserving Royals, who were full value for the 3-2 Western Hockey League win on Tyler Soy’s overtime goal.
Soy extended his scoring streak to eight games with eight goals and six assists in that stretch.
“I’ve played well lately . . . as a team we played a solid game tonight,” said the forward from Cloverdale, who is rated by Central Scouting to go in the later rounds of the 2015 NHL draft.
Soy knocked in Travis Brown’s shot on net for the overtime winner. The assist was Brown’s second of the night for his 14th point in the last eight games to push his WHL lead for scoring by defencemen to 41 points.
“[Brown] is a leader on and off the ice. He has been a good citizen for us,” said Royals head coach Dave Lowry.
Brandon Magee scored both of Victoria’s regulation-time goals. Magee must love playing against the Cougars. The 20-year-old with the non-stop motor has 15 goals and 39 points in 33 games against Prince George in his five-season WHL career.
“We played well as a team tonight,” said Magee.
He commented on fellow 20-year-old Brown’s play.
“Travis brings a lot of offensive upside, and as an [over-ager], he leads the way for the younger guys.”
Magee’s shot to the top corner, on a fine assist by former Cougars forward Alex Forsberg, got Victoria (21-19-3) on the board at 11:23 of the first period.
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With Victoria pressing for more on the power play, the momentum suddenly shifted when Victoria defenceman Chaz Reddekopp flubbed on a shot and the Cougars’ Chase Witala took the puck the length of the ice, turning Victoria’s Jack Walker inside-out in the process, and stayed with the rebound while sprawled on his back to score one of the best WHL goals of the season.
Opportunistic Prince George (20-22-1) was back again at 19:03 of the first period, with yet another short-handed goal, when a miscommunication between Royals goaltender Coleman Vollrath and Reddekopp, resulted in a pass from Jari Erricson to Aaron Boyd for the counter.
A power play finally went right for Victoria when Greg Chase’s precision stretch pass found Magee for a breakaway goal at 3:39 of the second period.
Big Ty Edmonds was outstanding in goal for Prince George with 33 saves. Vollrath made 20 for Victoria.
The clubs meet again tonight at the Memorial Centre.
ICE CHIPS: The Cougars feature a couple of rookies from the Island. The 17-year-old forward Haydn Hopkins of Victoria was involved in the trade that sent Forsberg to the Saskatoon Blades last spring. (Victoria got Forsberg, the overall first pick in the 2010 bantam draft, in a trade earlier this week with the Blades). The 16-year-old Josh Anderson of Duncan is a standout six-foot-three defenceman from Duncan who has represented Canada at the U-17 level. He could be going places.
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