Emergence of new goalie signals good things to come for Cougars

“He showcased a lot of his skills, fans loved it, put on a great show. But more importantly, he made saves, controlled the game, showed the guys it’s not going to be easy to score on them,” added Cougars Goaltending Coach Taylor Dakers.

In his Cougars debut weekend Levshyn stopped 49 of 52 shots, including some key saves in close moments and some acrobatic maneuvers in tight spots. He said he was quite nervous in his first period as a Cougar, but his teammates, on top of a combined 8000 fans over the two games, provided him a big boost.

“It’s great when you have a lot of fans and they’re cheering for us. It’s great to play at home, I think it’s my favourite part of hockey,” Levshyn said.

One strong weekend of hockey doesn’t define an entire season, but his debut performance certainly inspires confidence in the team. Dakers says Joshua Ravensbergen is the number one guy, but having a talent like Levshyn creates optimism that the Cougars could have one of the league’s best goaltending duos.

“Josh is going to give us a great chance to win every time he’s in the net. And the more we see of Alex, the more we feel that he’s going to give us a great chance to win when he’s in net,” Dakers said.

“We’re extremely fortunate, it looks like right now, to have two top-of-the-league-ish goalies. I mean, Alex has played one weekend, and that’s not fair to say yet, but he’s he’s off to a great start, and we’re pretty excited about the combination that we have,” Dakers continued.

Dakers said it’s impossible to say how exactly the split between Levshyn and Ravensbergen will play out, but says whoever is in net will be who gives the team the best chance to win, which will be an especially large advantage when it comes to situations like back to backs or long road trips.

“It’s all about the team and giving those guys the best chance to have their best games. Grinding guys down, making them play back to back or even three games in four nights, it’s nothing that we want to do, but some teams are forced to do that in order to win hockey games and give the team a good chance to win. We just want to put the best goalie on the ice every night,” Dakers said.

“Josh has proven to be that (the best goalie) over the last couple of years, so he’ll get the priority. But there’ll be lots of communication between myself and those two guys and head coach Mark Lamb, and we’ll give ourselves the best chance to win every night,” he added.

Levshyn has only been living in Prince George for around one month, but he says he’s really enjoyed the city and the Cougars’ culture.

“Oh it’s great, it’s a great small city, you actually have here everything that I need. And it’s a great city for playing hockey and developing my hockey career,” Levshyn.

The Cougars have a week off of action before hitting the road on October 3 to visit the Spokane Chiefs.

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by Tommy Osborne

Emergence of new goalie signals good things to come for Cougars

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