Forward Cole Reschny of the Victoria Royals and goaltender Joshua Ravensbergen of the Prince George Cougars each had a heady week, but it was the latter who got the best of the former on Friday night at CN Centre in Prince George.
Ravensbergen made 34 saves for the win while Royals leading point-getter Reschny was held to an assist as Prince George (7-4-3) defeated Victoria (6-3-2) by a 6-3 count.
Royals captain Justin Kipkie, a blue-liner and Utah HC prospect, opened scoring on the power play, but that’s as good as it got for the visitors as Prince George flashed why it looks to be the class of the Western Conference of the Western Hockey League. Los Angeles Kings third-round NHL draft pick Koehn Ziemmer scored twice for Prince George. Reggie Newman and Finnish-import and Winnipeg Jets draft-pick Markus Loponen each had a goal and assist for Victoria and Tanner Scott two assists.
Reschny and Ravensbergen were among six WHL players to receive A ratings as projected first-round selections for the 2025 NHL draft in Central Scouting’s Preliminary Players to Watch list released Wednesday, joining forwards Lynden Lakovic of the Moose Jaw Warriors and Roger McQueen of the Brandon Wheat Kings and defencemen Jackson Smith of the Tri-City Americans and Blake Fiddler of the Edmonton Oil Kings in that elite group.
Reschny and Ravensbergen were also this week among the 10 WHL players named to the Canadian Hockey League team that will play the U.S. Under-18 development team in the first Prospects Challenge games, to be played on Nov. 26 in London, Ont., and Nov. 27 in Oshawa, Ont., in what is considered a measure of the Canadian versus American systems of developing players.
But that is where the similarities between Reschny’s and Ravensbergen’s paths end. While Reschny has star quality written all over him when selected third overall by the Royals in the 2022 WHL prospects draft, Ravensbergen was overlooked completely in the WHL draft, making his ascension the unlikely stuff of dreams. The six-foot-four native of North Vancouver was invited on a try-out basis to the Cougars camp last season and he went on to prove that even with a parade of scouts blanketing youth tournaments, they do miss some things. Just ask Jamie Benn, Jarome Iginla, Shea Weber and Shane Doan, all overlooked in the WHL draft, among others.
Another example is Cougars forward Terik Parascak, only a fourth-round WHL prospects draft pick, who rocketed to the first round of the 2024 NHL draft, taken by the Washington Capitals as the 17th overall selection. Parascak continued showing WHL scouts wrong and Caps scouts right, by scoring a goal and adding assist on Friday against Victoria. Royals goaltender Jayden Kraus, ranked for the fourth/fifth rounds of the 2025 NHL draft, made 37 saves
Riley Heidt scored into an empty net and added three assists as he continued climbing up the all-time Victoria/Prince George Cougars scoring list. Heidt, the leading scorer since the team moved to Prince George from Victoria in 1994-94, is 10th all-time in franchise history and stalking No. 9, the late former Cougars forward and NHLer Gary Lupul. Still ahead of Heidt, all from the Victoria years from 1971-72 to 1993-94, are Mark Morrison, Barry Pederson, Rich Chernomaz, Curt Fraser, Simon Wheeldon, Ken Priestlay, Adam Morrison and Geordie Robertson.
Victoria fell to 1-2 on its four-game road swing, which concludes tonight, with the back-end of the two-game set in Prince George.
