{"id":32468,"date":"2018-01-17T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/sports\/thunderbirds-chase-down-cougars\/"},"modified":"2018-01-17T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T16:30:00","slug":"thunderbirds-chase-down-cougars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/sports\/thunderbirds-chase-down-cougars\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunderbirds chase down Cougars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div class='s2nFriendlyFrame k-Wgu6HrRQYn-367931-4316' data-type='single'><\/div>\n<p><script type='text\/javascript' src='https:\/\/embed.sendtonews.com\/player4\/embedcode.js?SC=Wgu6HrRQYn-367931-4316' data-type='s2nScript'><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Donovan Neuls scored two goals to lead the Seattle Thunderbirds to a 5-2 Western Hockey Leauge win over the Prince George Cougars at the CN Centre in British Columbia on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>The T-Birds and Cougars meet again at 7 p.m. Wednesday at CN Centre.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle returns to the accesso ShoWare Center on Friday to play the Kelowna Rockets at 7:35 p.m. They host the Swift Current Broncos at 7:05 p.m. Saturday in a game featuring the annual Fred Meyer Teddy Bear Toss presented by WARM 106.9 FM.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Neuls has three two-goal games in the last six games and seven goals and six assists over the last seven games.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle goalie Dorrin Luding had 28 saves on 30 shots to improve to 4-10-1-0.<\/p>\n<p>Prince George (17-21-4-3) took a 1-0 lead at 7:08 of the first period. Max Kryski tipped a Joel Lakusta shot past Luding. Josh Maser had the second assist.<\/p>\n<p>Seattle (21-16-4-2) tied the game 1-1 1:29 after the Cougars&rsquo; goal. Sami Moilanen had the puck in the right corner and centered the puck. The puck went off a Prince George defenseman&rsquo;s stick right to Neuls in the slot. Neuls took a wrist shot that hit Prince George goalie Tavin Grant&rsquo;s glove and went into the net. The goal was Neuls&rsquo; 15th of the season which is a career season high.<\/p>\n<p>The T-Birds took a 2-1 lead with 31 seconds left in the first period. Matthew Wedman gained the offensive zone on the right wing. Wedman made a cross ice pass to Nolan Volcan in the left circle. Volcan took a wrist shot that Grant got a glove on but the puck trickled across the goal line. Turner Ottenbreit had the second assist on Volcan&rsquo;s team leading 19th goal of the season.<\/p>\n<p>The T-Birds took a 4-1 lead with two goals in 34 seconds midway through the second period. <\/p>\n<p>Zack Andrusiak came up the right-wing wall and found Austin Strand inside the blue line at center ice. Strand took a slap shot with traffic in front of Grant that beat the goalie over the blocker at 8:26. It was Strand&rsquo;s 15th goal of the season.<\/p>\n<p>On the next shift, Neuls tipped a Dillon Hamaliuk shot past Grant at the nine-minute mark for his second goal of the game. Owen Williams had the second assist.<\/p>\n<p>Prince George pulled Grant for an extra attacker with under two minutes in the game. Blake Bargar hit the empty net from center ice at 18:54 to seal the win for the T-Birds. Strand had the only assist on Bargar&rsquo;s eighth goal of the season. <\/p>\n<p>Seattle outshot Prince George 10-6 in the third period and 34-30 in the game.<\/p>\n<p>Grant had 29 saves on 33 shots and his record is now 11-12-3-1.<\/p>\n<p>For tickets, order online on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seattlethunderbirds.com\/#sm.01gf8wq511lyfej10w81ji1g59vhq\" target=\"_blank\">T-Birds website<\/a> and at the ShoWare Center box office. Season tickets may be purchased by calling the T-Birds office at 253-239-7825.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SCORING SUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>First period &#8211;<\/strong> 1, Prince George, Kryski 4 (Lakusta, Maser), 7:08. 2, Seattle, Neuls 15 (Moilanen), 8:37. 3, Seattle, Volcan 19 (Wedman, Ottenbreit), 19:29. Penalties &#8211; No penalties.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Second period<\/strong> &#8211; 4, Seattle, Strand 15 (Andrusiak) 8:26. 5, Seattle, Neuls 16 (Hamaliuk, Owens), 9:00. 6, Prince George, Leppard 11 (Lakusta, Maser),18:30. Penalties &#8211; MacPhee, PG (cross checking), 3:53. Volcan, Sea (goaltender interference), 9:34. Lee, Sea (hooking), 14:30. Huo, Sea (tripping), 17:07.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Third period<\/strong> &#8211; 7, Seattle, Bargar 8 (Strand), 18:54 (en). Penalties &#8211; Sander, PG (hooking), 3:51. Strand, Sea (slashing), 6:19. Bethune, PG (high sticking), 16:16.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shots on goal<\/strong> &#8211; Seattle 13-11-10 34, Prince George 8-16-6 30. <strong>Goalies<\/strong> &#8211; Seattle, Luding 30 shots-28 saves (4-10-1-0); Prince George, Grant 33-29 (11-12-3-1). <strong>Power plays<\/strong> &#8211; Seattle 0-3; Prince George 1-4. A &#8211; 2,474. <strong>Referees<\/strong> &#8211; Brett Iverson, Trevor Peluk. <strong>Linesmen<\/strong> &#8211; Nick Albinati, Anthony Maletta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neuls has two goals in 5-2 win over Prince George | VIDEO <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":32470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32468"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}