One thing you can say about Zac Funk during his record-setting regular season campaign with the Prince George Cougars.
Given the chance to add yet another magic milestone to his stat sheet, he doesn’t waste any time getting the job done.
Three weeks after he joined the WHL’s 50-goal club and exactly a week after he signed an NHL contract with the Washington Capitals, the 20 year-old right winger moved himself into more elite company Friday night.
He scored his 60th and 61st goals to trigger a 5-3 win over the Vancouver Giants in front of a CN Centre crowd of 3,743.
Funk grabbed the spotlight and linemate Terik Parascak stole it from him, collecting five points with two goals and three assists.
Funk’s first of the game was a chip shot he floated in over the shoulder of Giants goalie Brett Mirwald while standing in the face-off circle. His No. 60th doubled the Cougars’ lead with six minutes left in the second period.
Seventy-six seconds later, Funk made it a 3-0 count when Parascak spotted him standing just off the goal line and fed a cross-crease pass that was in the net a split-second after it hit the blade of Funk’s stick
Funk is now only six points shy of Quinn Hancock’s all-time record for points in a season. He broke Hancock’s goals record of 54 and now has seven games left to equal or better Hancock’s 110-point season, also set in ‘97-98.
Parascak opened the scoring on a Cats’ power play, the only goal of the first period, then netted his 36th of the season 4:30 into the third, a perfect tap-in feed from Riley Heidt which gave him 36 goals - tops for all WHL rookies. That made it 4-1 and that stood as the gamewinner.
It was also a big night for another rookie-of-the-year candidate. Giants 16-year-old left winger and Prince George native Cameron Schmidt followed Funk’s lead and achieved his own record-breaking feat.
Schmidt’s spectacular goal came with 3:40 left in the third period when he walked in from the high slot and dangled his way around his check before letting rip a far-side shot under Joshua Ravenbergen’s glove. That was his 26th of the season and it shattered the Giants’ team record for goals in one season by a rookie, breaking the old mark of 25 set by Gibert Brule in 2003-04.
Schmidt’s second of the game, four minutes after his first, cut the Cougars’ lead to 4-2 with still plenty of time left.
But the Giants couldn’t stop a relentless Parascak, who got right back to terrorizing the Giants. He earned his fifth point with the primary assist to set up Cougars’ captain, Hudson Thornton for his 15th goal in his 200th career WHL game, and that took the mystery out of the outcome.
Shots were 44-33 in favour of the Cougars and both goalies impressed Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb.
“The first period it was 1-0 but (Ravensbergen) had six or seven Grade A saves that kept us in the game - that’d his job, but I just thought he was excellent tonight,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb.
“Parascak could have had eight goals tonight.”
The win moved the Cougars (42-15-1-3) back into first place in the Western Conference, one point ahead of the idle Portland Winterhawks, who have eight game left while Prince George is down to its last seven.
The Giants and Cougars meet again on Saturday (6 p.m.).
