The Giants were eager to bounce back after their first home loss to the hot-handed Kamloops Blazers, but you wouldn’t have known it by how they came out to play. Other than a few very motivated players the talk and bag skate following their loss did not seem to rev up the team tonight to face the Thunderbirds of Seattle. In fact I felt it was a battle for which least apathetic team would get the W. Kyle Lamb however, had a monster game and was one of the aforementioned players with guts and grit tonight. Garet Hunt drew two instigators from the Seattle squad with big checks and faired well in both fights and Jason Reese complemented Kyle Lamb on the new look line, garnering three assists on the night. Goals did not seem hard to come by, but there were a couple of very nice tallies, one by rookie Lance Bouma who notched his first of the season.

The Giants opened the scoring just 1:05 into the opening frame. Lamb made a nice hit on the end boards which popped the puck loose to Cody Franson on the near boards, flipping the puck to Jason Reese at the top of the face-off circle. Reese gamely took a big hit to make the play feeding the puck to Kyle who had cut in front of the net. Lamb took a shot and put in his own rebound off of Jacob DeSerres pad. The Giants then proceeded to bounce the puck all over the ice, miss checks, and skate like they were in quicksand. The Thunderbirds tied the game off of a very poor play by Brendan Mikkelson who coughed up the puck on an unforced error in his own end and gave Greg Scott a gift in the slot. Scott cut across the net and backhanded a puck at Slade which squeaked through the netminder for the tying goal. It was the Seattle squad’s first shot on goal.

Garet Hunt got his team reenergized off of a big hit on the end boards in the offensive zone. Thomas Hickey tackled Garet and got a few free shots in before the diminutive winger stepped back up and ripped off Hickey’s helmet. The two combatants traded blows and drifted away from the boards while exchanging blow for blow. Garet got a couple of late over-hand hits in (a novelty for the 5’8” fireplug of player) and finished with an uppercut and the marginal takedown for the slight edge. He drew an instigator from Hickey and gave his team and the small crowd a lift. Lance Bouma put the G-Men back up by one playing with Tim Kraus and JD Watt. Bouma worked the puck behind the net, bouncing it to Kraus who chipped it up the boards to Watt. Watt took a shot into the traffic created by Bouma who had gone directly to the front of the net. Bouma was crosschecked and hauled down to the ice and on his belly managed to sweep the puck past DeSerres. However, the Seattle squad would notch another one to tie it back up just after failing to capitalise on their PP. It was their grind line who would get a drifter to the net and bounce the puck off a T-Bird shin pad and in behind Slade for another ugly one. It was the Thunderbirds second shot on goal. The Giants held the Thunderbirds to two shots in the first and were tied at 2’s at the end of the period.. what the... ?

The Giants began the second on the PP (which carried over from the previous period) and were back up by one just 18 seconds into the middle stanza. Lamb would get his second of the game going to net on the PP, assists went to Reese and Mitch Czibere who had a bit of a rough night handling the puck but did some good things none-the-less. The rest of the second was a back and forth affair, as neither team really seemed interested in pressing the attack and neither squad really found a decent handle on the puck. The Giants who are normally a very fast skating team were appearing very ordinary on the blades this evening. Maybe Hayzer’s bag-skate had taken too much of a toll on their endurance. It was the best period for the Seattle squad as they managed to add another 12 shots to their tally with the G-Men uncharacteristically notching a mere five. Slade did not have to be good in the second, just there, in position, which in itself seemed to be a bit of struggle for him at times. The shots on net were mostly simple ones even though the puck continued to dip and bounce throughout the game.

Garet Hunt levelled a Seattle player with his head down with a clean open ice hit in the T-Birds end of the ice, early in the third period. D-man Bretton Stamler took umbrage and cross checked Hunt to the ice. The boys dropped their gloves and went at it and even though Stamler got some early hits on Garet, the tough pitbull stood in there until he got his chance once again eventually getting the marginal take-down as both players fell to the ice. Hunt would once again draw an instigator from the US division squad and put his team on the PP. Lamb would get his third point of the game on the ensuing man-advantage chipping the puck to Reese cruising through the high slot. Reese drifted the puck over to Franson who saw daylight on the short side from the point and picked his spot. The T-Birds pulled their goalie with about 1:45 to go to no avail. The Giants would finish off the squad’s chances with less than thirty seconds left in the game as Repik notched the EN, off of Milan Lucic and Kenton Dulle. The two teams weren’t done as the Seattle team decided to try to make a statement as towering Benn Olson took on John Flatters for a lively final tilt of the evening which also ended in mostly a draw.

It was an odd night – upon review it seemed like a lot happened, but maybe it was the small crowd or lack of energy in the building itself, but the Giants did not put their best game out on the ice and I feel if the other team had really been hungry for the win the Giants might have been surprised. The G-Men drew the T-Birds back-up ‘tender and they had some nice goals but it didn’t feel like they had to work that hard for them. Kyle Lamb had his best night of the season and was suitably rewarded for his efforts and other than the few mentioned above stood head and shoulders above his team-mates, in terms of making plays, finishing checks and having the hunger and intensity I expected from the whole team, especially after their first loss at home which broke their prodigious home-ice streak. It felt less like the sharp quick game that the Giants usually execute, and more like a Keystone cops fire-drill out there. Maybe I was spoiled watching them win all those games earlier in the season, but what I saw was a bit of a head-scratcher (even though on paper it looks like it was a great game) and by the looks on the faces of those around me I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

The Giants went 2 for 4 on the PP while holding the T-Birds to 0 for 4. Shots were 26-18 in favour of the G-Men. Their next tilt is on Saturday the 18th of November, for a “ Captains of the Coliseum night”, taking on the visiting Regina Pats. Puck drops at 7:30p.

Three Stars
1 – Kyle Lamb
2 - Jason Reese
3 - Brett Festerling

I would have given a star to Garet Hunt for his efforts out there, though. He more than any other players got the Seattle team off their game.