Port Moody Black Panthers out-shot the best the Harold Brittain Conference has to offer Wednesday.
They darn near out-scored them, too.
The Cats and Kodiaks were knotted 2-2 midway through the game before Aldergrove scored three of the game's final four goals to prevail 5-3 in a Pacific International Jr. 'B' hockey league game at Aldergrove Community Arena.
"Either team could have won," said Black Panthers general manager Ron Luniw, whose squad had its two-game win streak snapped. "We didn't capitalize enough when we should have and it came back to bite us a bit in the end."
The result left the Cats third in the five-team conference at 9-14-4-1 while the Kodiaks jumped to 19-6-1-1 and six points up on the second-place Abbotsford Pilots.
Luniw said the game proved the Cats have turned things around since last week's coaching change that brought in James Strang in place of out-going bench boss Craig Sherbaty.
"Are we getting where we want to go? I think so," Luniw said. "Aldergrove's a good hockey club, no question, and we were right there with them. It was a high-end game... lots of tempo, end-to-end."
The Kodiaks' Jordan Pughe and PoMo's Cam Patterson swapped first-period goals, and Aldergrove's Brandon Potomak and the Cats' Trevor Kang did likewise 10 seconds apart early in the second.
Robert Jang gave the Kodiaks a 3-2 lead going into the third and Potomak bagged his second marker of the game four minutes into the third to his the hosts a two-goal cushion.
Martin Campbell struck on a Cats' powerplay fewer than two minutes later to make it a 4-3 game, before Daniel Higgs boosted the Kodiaks' margin to 5-3 at the 10-minute mark to eventually close out the scoring.
The Cats out-shot the Kodiaks 45-43, with Mark Menicucci blocking 38 shots in the PoMo cage. Patterson also had two assists to give him a three-point night.
The Cats host the North Vancouver Wolf Pack on Saturday at PoMo Rec Complex, 7:45 p.m.
