It was a rough night for the ol’ save percentage, but Jared Rathjen skated away with his 11th win of the season at the Pacific Coliseum. His Vancouver Giants scored early and scored often on Friday night, but they needed to hang on tight for their 6–5 win over the Prince George Cougars.
It was the kind of game that drives both coaches nuts. Tim Traber opened the scoring for the home side 49 seconds into the game on a rebound in the blue paint, but then Rathjen let in two goals on the glove side just 18 seconds apart to give the lead to the Cougars. A buck seven later, the Giants had scored twice more, taking back the lead themselves. Less than eight minutes into the first period, it was 3–2 Giants. They would add another pair of goals to walk out of the first period with a 5–2 lead.
It’s a cakewalk at this point, right? Twenty minutes in against the ninth-place Cougars, up 18–8 in shots and 5–2 in goals, Vancouver should tip this bad boy out the door, no problem.
Yeah, uh… problem.
More, including game highlights, after the jump.
The second period saw the visitors push back, outshooting the home team 11–7 and clawing back to within a goal. 5–4 going into the third period. Thankfully, Don Hay settled the Giants down in the intermission. Jackson Houck ripped home a wrist shot just 42 seconds into the third to provide some insurance. Sure, the Cougars scored a late goal to provide some drama, but let’s face it, Prince George doesn’t have a Sidney Crosby to magic a two-goal comeback like we saw at Rogers Arena the other night.
Mason Geertsen and Tyler Morrison get tangled up in Jared Rathjen’s crease during WHL play. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Although the Giants carried the majority of the play — they outshot the Cougars 40–27 and dominated long stretches of the game — you can’t really fault Rathjen on the closeness of the score. The first goal against came on a 2-on-1, a perfect shot top cheese by Marc McNulty. The second was a long distance wrister through traffic that Rathjen couldn’t possibly have seen before it was behind him. Third, a well-executed power play goal, the fourth a nifty deke after a defensive lapse in front of him. That last goal that made things interesting came on a rebound after #33 had fought through traffic to stop a point shot.
So the Cougars took advantage of some bounces and a couple of Giants miscues, and nearly got a point out of this game. Close to 5,800 fans in the Pacific Coliseum were glad that on this night, Vancouver was able to outscore its mistakes.
With the win, the Giants are just two points back of the Seattle Thunderbirds for sixth place in the West, and three points back of the Everett Silvertips for fifth. Each of those teams have a game in hand on Vancouver, but they’ve also been slumping somewhat while the Giants have won seven of their last ten.
Vancouver has Saturday off before hosting the Portland Winterhawks, an injury-riddled team who will be playing their third road game in three nights. Puck drop on Sunday is at 5pm.