Americans rally late, but fall short at Prince George
For the second game in a row, a furious comeback on the part of the Tri-City Americans fell short.
Tri-City rallied from a 4-1 deficit Friday at Prince George, but could not tie the score in the last couple of minutes as the Cougars skated away with a 4-3 victory.
Wednesday, the Americans trailed Kelowna 3-1 before rallying to take a 4-3 lead. In the end, the Rockets came away with a 5-4 win.
The Americans (20-12-5-0) are tied for third in the U.S. Division with Spokane. Each team has 45 points, but Tri-City has two games in hand.
Friday, Tavin Grant made 34 saves and Jared Bethune scored three goals as Prince George (15-18-4-2, 36 points) won for the fourth time in 10 games.
Trailing 4-1 in the third, the Americans got goals from Sasha Mutala at 9:46, and Riley Sawchuk with 1 minute remaining in regulation to pull within 4-3.
Tri-City pulled goalie Patrick Dea for an extra attacker down the stretch, but could not even the score.
Nolan Yaremko scored the first goal for Tri-City at 1:41 of the second period.
Dea finished with 16 saves.
Cougars 4, Americans 3
Tri-City | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 |
Prince George | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 0 |
First — 1, PG, Bethune 10 (Cholowski, Maser), 14:42 (pp). 2, PG, Bethune 11 (Maser, Lakusta), 16:51.
Second — 3, TC, Yaremko 13 (AuCoin, Gatenby), 1:41. 4, PG, Maser 16 (Anderson, Lakusta), 11:58.
Third — 5, PG, Bethune 12 (Cholowski, Leppard), 6:40 (pp). 6, TC, Mutala 4 (Geekie, Topping), 9:46 (pp). 7, TC, Sawchuk 5 (Mutala), 19:00.
Shots — TC 16-8-13 — 37. PG 9-5-6 — 20. Power plays — TC 1-5. PG 2-3. Goalies — TC, Dea, 9-7-4-0 (20 shots-16 saves). PG, Grant 10-10-3-0 (37-34). Referees — Tyler Adair and Clayton Hall. A — 2,855.
This story was originally published January 6, 2018 at 5:19 PM with the headline "Americans rally late, but fall short at Prince George."