The Prince George Cougars delivered a dagger to the Victoria Royals, eliminating their division foes from playoff contention with a 2-1 win.
“We talked after last night’s game, you get the win, but you’re not really satisfied with your system play, your structure, some penalties, we had some stuff to clean up,” said Cougars Assistant Coach Carter Rigby on the post-game show on 94.3 the Goat.
“We talked last night going into this one, we’re locked into third so what does it mean for us, but we want to keep this train going in the right direction. You look at Vaughaner stepping in tonight with some guys out, and took control of our group and it was a really solid effort from everybody.”
With their positioning locked up, the Cougars rested a few of their top guys, including Josh Ravensbergen, Terik Parascak, Bauer Dumanski, and Carson Carels.
The Royals were on the outside looking in heading into Saturday night’s contest at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena in Victoria.
Sitting in 9th, the Royals needed the win and a Portland Winterhawks loss for a shot at the post-season.
The Cougars were up 2-1 in the third, and the Royals had a golden opportunity to save their season, going to a two-man advantage for nearly two full minutes.
However, the WHL’s third best penalty kill stood strong.
“If you’re down one, that’s what you’re looking for, is to get an opportunity like that, to get another one with a five-on-three, it’s was huge,” Rigby said.
“The bench was great with it, and obviously big moments in big games, that was for sure probably the turning point that kept us on top and solidified the win for us.”
The Cougars were backstopped by a brilliant performance from Alexander Levhsyn, who made 32 saves on the night, including a few key saves to keep the Cougars lead down the stretch, breaking the hearts of the 5,229 fans at Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena.
Alexander Levshyn. That is all. Thank you for your attention. @CarlsJrCA pic.twitter.com/TkfVws9y0W
— Prince George Cougars (@PGCougars) March 22, 2026
“You build from your back end out, and we’ve said it multiple times all year, we feel that, yeah, we have the best goalie in the league, but we have the best tandem as well,” Rigby said.
“We’ve got two solid 19-year-olds like we have in net that no matter what happens, in any situation, they can both go in and give us a chance to win and that’s what they do on a night in, night out basis and you need that going into playoffs if you want to go on a run.”
Desperate for the win, the Royals opened the scoring 2:53 into the second period, when Max Silver fired the puck over the left pad of Levshyn.
— Victoria Royals (@victoriaroyals) March 22, 2026
Tyrone Sobry found the back of the net for the first time as a Cougar about four minutes later, sending home an absolute rocket.
Tyrone Sobry’s first as a Cougar came at the perfect time! 😼@CarlsJrCA https://t.co/C80VTRlskc pic.twitter.com/oq7lBAWgF4
— Prince George Cougars (@PGCougars) March 22, 2026
4:26 into the third, Koy Funk put home the eventual game winner, streaking down the left side and placing a perfect wrist shot past Ethan Eskit.
The box score is here.
The Cougars (44-22-2-0) are third in the Western Conference, and will find out their first round matchup today.
A Cameron Schmidt hat trick helped the Seattle Thunderbirds (30-27-6-5) earn a 5-4 overtime win over the Portland Winterhawks (30-30-7-1) last night, clinching seventh for Seattle and eighth for Portland.
Schmidt, a product of Prince George, will be looking for goal number 50 on the season today, in a game that will decide who the Cougars play in the first round of the playoffs.
The Thunderbirds will travel to Spokane to take on the Chiefs (36-29-2-0), who currently hold the sixth seed in the Western Conference.
With a win or a point, the Chiefs will move past the fifth-place Kamloops Blazers (31-24-7-6) in the standings.
The WHL standings are here.
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