The back half of the home-and-home was at the Panthers barn, Panorama Rec Centre in North Saanich.
Much like game 1 of the series, the Cougars hit the board first, and often. Ethan Roworth kicked off the scoring with his 1st of the season. Strange and Pang grabbed the apples. Pang was the one who scored the 1st goal of game 1 at around the same point of the game as in this contest. Freshly minted Cougars Captain, Dylan Jessa, got his 2nd goal of the year 6 minutes later. Jackson Estey got his 3rd goal in 4 periods to round out the 1st period.
Johnathon ‘Espo’ Esposito snagged his 1st of the year 15 minutes and change into the 2nd period. Just before the Cougars scored this goal, Tom Arlidge, Cougars Colour Commentator, mentioned how the Cougars were getting sloppy. He was right. Give-aways, and no sense of urgency. But, sometimes you need to be lucky to be good. A long soft shot from the high slot was deflected off of Hunter Jensen and into the net. The Panthers capitalized late in the 2nd after the Cougars got caught standing still in their own end and short-handed. A juicy rebound was sitting at the top of the crease with no goalie or defence to challenge Matthew Seale.
The 3rd period was fairly evenly matched with both teams trading chances, but nothing found the back of the net in the final frame. The game ultimately ended 4-1 Cougars who move to 2-0 on the season.
Next up for Victoria is the first match against the expansion Lake Cowichan Kraken. 7pm on Thursday at the Arch. Catch it live on HockeyTV.
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