The Vancouver Giants started a five game road trip playing their first game against the Eastern Conference leading Tigers. Tonight’s game was the first of three in a row versus the Central Division, and the first of three in three nights. Two of the three newly acquired Giants made their debuts tonight and showed some great promise. The third one, Michael Wuchterl, had a minor shoulder injury which kept him from playing. Wacey Rabbit tallied a goal and an assist in the loss, and AJ Thelen looked to be fairly solid on the back-end playing with Franson. I shall call them FranLen.

Michal Repik and Rabbit playing together on the PK, and most of the night, looked to have some early chemistry scoring a shorthanded goal in the first. The Tigers got two goals before the end of the first, off of a good forecheck and a defensive gaffe. Medicine Hat added another one in the third off of a point shot which glanced off of Jonathon Blum’s shoulder and in behind Tyson Sexsmith. Sexsmith was rather snake-bit tonight and despite that played a very solid game. The Giants got one back at the very end of the third, but it was too little, too late. Matt Keetley was no slouch himself between the pipes stopping a few point blank shots and keeping the Vancouver squad from adding to the score sheet when it counted.

The Giants opened the scoring 13:22 into the first while killing a penalty. It was the first penalty called in the game and it came off of a turnover at the blue-line. Speedsters Repik and Rabbit came hard into the zone. Repik drifted right and snapped a hard shot low on Keetley’s pads. Rabbit gathered the rebound and managed to stuff it past Keetley with a tenacious effort, finding the net after a couple of jabs at the puck.


The Tigers got one back about two and a half minutes later. Darren Helm cut diagonally across the net and found the puck along the boards before Brent Regner could react. Helm threw it out front to Chris Stevens who made no mistake putting it past Sexsmith. The Medicine Hat team took a lead which they would never relinquish with less than a minute in the period. A bad blind back pass by Cody Franson put the puck on Brennan Bosch’s stick and from virtually the same area where Helm had his assist, found a wide open Tyler Ennis alone in the slot. No chance for Sexsmith. In a close checking period the teams managed to each get 11 shots on the other guy’s net.

Mid-way through the second the Tigers got a weird one. Jordan Bendfeld garnered his fifth of the season throwing the puck toward the net. The high shot hit Giants d-man Jonny Blum in the high slot and picked the top corner stick-side. The Tigers then proceeded to play shut-down hockey only venturing into the offensive zone when they had a clean chance but not really taking any unnecessary chances. They did however send in a couple of fore checkers on each line to keep the Giants pinned in their own zone. The Giants started to come back late in the period though, but were hampered as Milan Lucic took a very unLucic-like penalty. Lucic was caught for kneeing with a couple of minutes to go in the middle stanza. The victim - Darren Helm, spun around like he was competing for gold in Olympic figure skating and went down drawing a major penalty and a game misconduct from Milan. Not that Helm was faking, although he didn’t miss a shift after laying on the ice for a couple of minutes, but I would say he did embellish the hit to garner the bonus infraction time. At speed it did not look that bad but on the replay it did appear as if Lucic had time to step inside and not hang his knee out. The penalty carried through the end of the second, killing the momentum of the Vancouver squad, and into the third.

The Tigers got the majority of the penalties called in the third and although the Giants PP looked anaemic and sloppy, the Vancouver squad found a bit of momentum mid third and began to press back. That was when Matt Keetley stood up and made himself a place in the game by stymieing the Giants forays into the Tiger zone. The G-Men managed to get one by Keetley with less than a minute to go and the goalie pulled. Rabbit got the puck to Mikkelson who cut down the left side and looked about to shoot but instead stutter-stepped and fed to McArdle at the front of the net. McArdle redirected the puck up and over Keetley to give the visitors a bit of life. That was all they would get though as the Tigers continued to dominate in the face-off circle and ran the G-Men out of time.

Usually when these two teams get together there is a lot of emotion, but that was not the case tonight as the Tigers played shut down hockey once they got the lead and the Giants never really seemed to be fired up enough to really take it to the home team. The Giants hitting was not up to its usual standard and although there were some good moments the Giants suffered from a bit of sloppiness. That sloppiness can be attributed to in part by the Tigers excellent gap control, but in the end the Giants did not fight through the clutching enough to get the upper-hand.

Neither team scored on the PP with both squads going 0 for 5 on the man-advantage. The shots were 29-22 in favour of the Giants. Craig Cunningham had a good game and got some decent shots on net due to his effort. Spencer Machacek looked to be rediscovering a bit of that hard skating he had last season and Rabbit skated well with Repik and Lucic until Lucic was ejected from the game. Sexsmith stopped everything he could stop and looked good keeping the score close. The Giants next game is tomorrow night in Lethbridge. Blaine Neufeld will probably get the start. The puck drops at 7pm local time, 6pm Pacific.

Three Stars
1 – Chris Stevens
2 – Matt Keetley
3 – Wacey Rabbit