It may read mid-September on the calendar but the Prince George Spruce Kings and the Penticton Vees served up a game with a playoff feel to it.
It had chippiness, big saves, momentum swings and some timely offense.
Jay O’Brien would be the Saturday hero scoring in overtime to give Penticton a 4-3 victory over Prince George in front of 873 fans at the Rolling Mix Concrete Arena.
The Philadelphia Flyers first round draft pick from 2019 burst past Corey Cunningham during the 3-on-3 session before tucking it past Prince George netminder Jack McGovern who made 14 saves on 18 shots in his first BCHL start.
“We did a lot of things right from last night (6-1 win over Victoria) to tonight and if we clean a few things up we can be a contender and go really far. We outplayed them all night but couldn’t finish our chances,” said Evan Orr, Spruce Kings defenceman.
Prince George came out with a picture perfect first period outshooting the Vees 12-4, which culminated into a power-play goal from Nic Poisson who ripped it top-shelf past Penticton netminder Derek Krall.
The wheels fell off early in the second for the Spruce Kings as they squandered a four-minute double-minor man-advantage giving up a pair of shorthanded goals to Colton Kalezic and Jack Barnes, much to the displeasure of Poisson.
“That’s unacceptable. We can’t give up two shorthanded goals like that, most of it was on my unit, me especially on that second one. We had chances to score in that game and we couldn’t capitalize in the end there.”
After killing off a pair of Penticton power-plays, Preston Brodziak got his nose dirty in front of the net and scored a rebound goal off a point shot from Colton Cameron to even the game at 2-2 after 40 minutes.
Both teams traded goals in the third period as Danny Weight lit the lamp for Penticton while Chong Min Lee tied it up with 1:44 remaining with the goalie pulled.
Prince George outshot the Vees 33-18 who fall to 1-1-2 on the season.
The Vees improve to 4-0.
A three-game Lower Mainland road trip awaits the Spruce Kings next weekend with stops in Chilliwack (Friday), Langley (Saturday), and Coquitlam (Sunday).