Giants Take Opener Against Cougars

By 250 Sports

Vancouver Giants put their initial stamp on the WHL Western Conference final with a 3-2 victory over the Prince George Cougars at the Pacific Coliseum. The Giants never trailed in a game they led 1-0 after 20 minutes on an unassisted goal by Lance Bouma whose wrap-around attempt went off the skate of Ty Wishart and past Real Cyr. The Prince George goalie made several huge saves as Vancouver outshot the Cats 19-7 in the opening period. A Ty Wishart point shot was deflected by Evan Fuller to pull the Cougars even at 1-1 just over 9 minutes into the second period. But 55 seconds later the Giants regained the lead as Kendal McArdle tapped in a loose puck after Cyr made the initial save off Tim Kraus. The Vancouver line of Repik, Rabbit and Lucic went to work to capitalize on the forcecheck. Michal Repick beat Cyr on a backhander to give the Giants a 3-1 lead after two periods. The penalty-filled third period produced one goal when the Cougars Chris Durand converted a Devin Setoguchi pass on the power play. Prince George was down 3-2 with 3:34 left in regulation but the Cougars could not find the equalizer as Vancouver grabbed a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven conference final.

Real Cyr faced 37 shots in suffering his first regulation time loss in the post-season. The Giants Tyson Sexsmith saw 21 Prince George shots in the Vancouver net. The Cats playoff win streak ended at 4 while the Giants won their fifth in a row of the WHL post-season. Game Two goes Saturday night at 7 in Vancouver before the series shifts to the CN Centre for games three and four Tuesday and Wednesday in Prince George.

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