Carlson Leads the Cats By the 'Canes.

Friday night in Prince George, the Cougars got three point nights from both Cody Carlson and Troy Bourke, and Drew Owsley made 49 saves to give the Prince George Cougars a 6-3 victory over the visiting Lethbridge Hurricanes.

The game did not start well for the Cougars who at one point were outshot 7-0 by the visitors. Lethbridge opened the scoring when Craig Leverton converted off a Cougars turnover in the slot to give his team the 1-0 advantage.

At the halfway point of the period the Cougars were being outshot 14-3 and were being badly outplayed by the Hurricanes. Everything changed when the Cougars were given a series of power plays. They failed to score on a five-on-three, but with one second left on the man advantage Jesse Forsberg tipped home a Cody Carlson point-shot for his first goal of the season.

65 seconds later the Cougars followed it up with another as Jordan Tkatch knocked home a Reid Jackson rebound for his ninth and the Cats led 2-1. Another 1:42 later and the Cougars struck again on the power play. Cody Carlson hammered home a one-timer off a pass from Troy Bourke, and the Cougars skated into the intermission up 3-1. The shots were 21-16 favoring Lethbridge after one.

The Hurricanes inched back within one at the 8:51 mark of the second period on the power play when Brody Sutter one-timed a pass home for his 18th, but 12 seconds later the Cougars bounced right back with one of their own. Daulton Siwak converted on a Troy Bourke pass for his sixth of the season and his first as a Cougar to make it 4-2.

Cody Carlson’s second of the period and Brady Ramsay’s 15th of the year for Lethbridge rounded out the scoring in the second period. The other major highlight of the second came when Nick Buonassisi was stopped on a penalty-shot by Drew Owsley. Owsley has now faced three penalty-shots this season and has stopped them all.

Greg Fraser scored the lone goal of the third period on a nice individual effort, and the Cougars were able to shut the door from there.

Lethbridge outshot the Cougars 52-40 but the Cougars won the special-teams war. The Cougars finished with two power play goals while the Hurricanes were one-for-five on the night.

The Cougars victory coupled with a Victoria loss now moves Prince George within one point of the Victoria Royals for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference standings. The Cougars record now sits at 14-26-0-2 through 42 games.