Wednesday night in Prince George, the Cougars dropped a 5-2 decision to the Regina Pats. Morgan Klimchuk paced the Pats offense with two goals, while Jari Erricson and Jared Bethune had the lone goals in response for Prince George. Pats goaltender Daniel Wapple faced 32 shots and turned aside 30 in the victory while Tavin Grant and Ty Edmonds split the duties in goal for the Cougars at home.

The Pats led 2-0 after one period. Adam Brooks opened the scoring at 9:59 of the first period off a two-on-one rush with Pavel Padakin. Morgan Klimchuk then increased the Pats lead at 15:37 off a pass from Sam Steel behind the Cougars net. Regina outshot the Cougars 10-7 in the first.

Just past the seven minute park of period two, the Pats struck again. Connor Gay took a pass in the slot and was denied on his first attempt but then grabbed his own rebound and beat Tavin Grant on his glove side to increase Regina’s lead to 3-0. Mark Holick pulled the young netminder in order to try and spark his team.

In came Ty Edmonds, who made a couple of difficult saves early in his appearance, and the Cougars then got on the board shortly thereafter. Zach Pochiro fed Jari Erricson on a cross-ice pass in the neutral-zone, and Erricson did the rest, speeding past the defender and sneaking a backhand shot past the blocker of Pats netminder Daniel Wopple for his team-leading 14th goal of the season.

Regina restored their two goal lead at 16:26 of the second when Morgan Klimchuk buried a Sam Steel pass off a two-on-one rush, and Regina took their 4-1 lead into the second intermission with the shots favoring Regina 24-16 through two periods.

Jared Bethune and Sergey Zborovskiy swapped goals in the third period, and despite the Cougars outshooting the Pats 16-8, t he score ended at 5-2 for the visitors.

The final shots were even at 32-32, but the Cougars finished the night zero-for-four on the power play while the Pats finished one-for-four.

With the loss, the Cougars are now 13-14 on the season while the Pats improved to 13-14.

Next up for the Cougars: The Prince Albert Raiders at home next Wednesday, December 3rd.