Two goal deficit? No problem.
The top line of the Marcus Lougheed, Tai Ushio and Ben Vreugdenhil had no problem solving that math equation Friday night scoring four out of the five goals for the Prince George Spruce Kings in a 5-4 triumph over the Victoria Grizzlies in front of 848 fans at the Kopar Memorial Arena.
PG battled back from 2-0 and 3-1 down to improve to 13-9-1-0 on the campaign.
It was a weird game filled with odd bounces, offensive momentum swings and physicality.
Dennison Monahan opened the scoring for the Grizzlies at 13:29 of the first period as his initial point shot was stopped by Spruce Kings netminder Colin Reay. However, nobody thought to collect the rebound giving Monahan easy access to a loose puck.
In the dying seconds of the first Artur Gross’ point shot got past Reay doubling the Victoria advantage to 2-0 after 20 minutes.
The Spruce Kings finally got a fortunate bounce of their own at 1:20 of the middle frame as Mason Loewen streaked in on a 2-on-1 rush.
An attempted saucer pass for River Arnason bounced off the skate of a Grizzlies defender and past Finnish goaltender Casimir Weckstrom trimming the deficit in half.
Victoria regained its two-goal margin a couple minutes later as a Michael Dowdall point blast from inside the PG blueline fooled Reay for a 3-1 lead.
Then the top trio of Lougheed, Ushio and Vreugdenhil put their work boots on and took the game over.
After a quick chance on a 3-2, Vreugdenhill collected his own rebound and scored past Weckstrom.
From there, Lougheed took over the game for the Spruce Kings where the national champion with the Collingwood Blues scored twice in a matter of 3:21.
Loughheed’s first goal came on a one-time blast thanks to a pass from Slovenian defender Ozbej Rep.
His second of the contest came at the side of the Grizzlies net, where it was let in by Weckstrom giving Prince George a 4-3 edge after 40 minutes.
Ushio put the game a little more out of reach with a great individual effort in the third period where he spun around and shot the puck into the Grizzlies crease giving the Spruce Kings a two-goal advantage.
Trae Johnson added a late marker for the Grizzlies to make it 5-4, tipping a Owen Warnick shot with the goaltender pulled with less than three minutes remaining.
The Spruce Kings were out shot 32-24 but went 2-for-4 on the power-play while Victoria was 0-for-3.
Both teams complete the double-header at 6pm tonight (Saturday) from the Kopar Memorial Arena.
It’s the Drop the Gloves and Sock It To Em in support of St. Vincent De Paul where fans are asked to bring winter clothing as well as cash and food donations.
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