The Victoria Royals kept the Prince George fans waiting Saturday night at CN Place. But rookie Terik Parascak finally broke the deadlock at 6:21 of the third period to trigger the avalanche of fur in a 1-0 Cougars victory on Teddy Bear toss night.
It was the first loss as a five-game Western Hockey League road trip concluded for the Royals.
The Cougars are tops in the Western Hockey League and ranked No. 2 in the Canadian Hockey League top-10 poll behind the Baie-Comeau Drakkar of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
Both goaltenders, 17-year-old rookies, were factors as Joshua Ravensbergen recorded a 16-save shutout for Prince George and Jayden Kraus made 32 saves to keep Victoria in the game.
For Ravensbergen it was his league-leading sixth shutout of the season. He tied Scott Bowles for the Cougars team record.
The Royals (18-12-2) are six points behind the leading Cougars (22-8) in the Western Conference but Prince George holds two games in hand.
The Cougars were without third-round Los Angeles Kings draft pick Koehn Ziemmer, out long term with an ankle injury, but did have defenceman Viliam Kmec, who will leave soon to play for Slovakia in the 2024 world junior championship beginning Boxing Day in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Cougars forward Ondrej Becher is also heading to the world junior tournament to play for Czechia.
The Cougars play their last three games before Christmas on the road - Wednesday in Everett against the Silvertips, Friday in Wenatchee against the Wild and Saturday in Langley against the Vancouver Giants. The Cougars next play at home on Dec. 27 against the Edmonton Oil Kings and Dec. 28 against the Calgary Hitmen.
