The Prince George Cougars earned their first win of the pre-season with a 5-0 blanking of the Victoria Royals, Saturday at the Job Baillie Arena in Port Coquitlam.
The Cougars got the scoring started in the opening period, getting a power-play marker 49 seconds in from Oren Shtrom. The newly acquired Cougar fired a wrist shot from the right circle past Nicholas Cristiano. Just under two minutes later, 2023 2nd round pick Townes Kozicky scored his first of the preseason off a 2 on 1 feed from Nicholas McLennan at 2:58. Cougar goaltender Joshua Ravensbergen was busy in the opening stanza, kicking aside 15 Royal shots.
In the second period, Drew Peterson added to Prince George’s lead, firing a wrist shot from the right point at 15:59. Ravensbergen finished his strong outing with 9 more saves in the second. The North Vancouver product stopped 24 of 24 in his two periods of action. The final moments saw some rough stuff with Aiden Foster of the Cats and Logan Pickford of the Royals dropping the gloves.
In the final 20 minutes, the Cougars continued to pour it on, getting a power-play tip in goal from Jett Lajoie just 1:16 in. Veteran forward Cayden Glover then delivered his first of the pre-season, putting it by the Victoria goaltender below the right circle to make it 5-0. Brady Holtvogt finished the game for the Cougars in the third and stopped all 7 shots he faced.