The Prince George Cougars dropped their first game of 2023 to the Everett Silvertips by a 4-2 score, Friday at the CN Centre.
Riley Heidt and Koehn Ziemmer provided the Cougar offence, while Ty Young made 30 saves on 34 shots in the setback.
Heidt got the scoring started, 38 seconds into the game, to give the Cougars an early lead.
Everett answered with three of their own in the opening period, getting a goal from Austin Roest and a pair from Ryan Hofer, one of which was on the power-play, to give Everett a 3-1 lead after one.
In the second, PG put together a terrific period, and got rewarded with a power-play goal that was ripped home by Koehn Ziemmer in the dying seconds. The Cougars, however, remained down a goal after 40 minutes.
The Silvertips re-gained the two-goal lead with a Jesse Heslop goal, four minutes in, to make it 4-2. The Cougars gave a late push, however, were unable to solve goaltender Tyler Palmer in the third, leading to Everett’s 4-2 win.