The Vancouver Giants were eager to recover from a bizarre ending to a game in Seattle where an errant puck caromed off a crease in the boards and drifted awkwardly into an open net as Dustin Slade undid all of his stellar goaltending on the evening struggling to get back to catch the biscuit before it crossed the red-line, but to no avail. The Giants were on a 10 game winning streak and hoping to make it 11 as they came from behind against the Thunderbirds to force the extra 5 minutes in the Emerald City. A heart-breaking loss to be sure as the G-Men wanted to set a new WHL record for a winning streak to start the season, which was held at 10 games by a Brandon team in the 70’s.

Tonight the Giants took on another US Division team, The Spokane Chiefs, for the second time this season, edging them out 4-2 in a tilt at the Coliseum on Sept. 26th. The difference this time around was that high Canucks draft pick Michael Grabner was in the line-up for the Vancouver fan’s first look at him in the regular season.

The game began with the usual suspects taking the opening face-off, Garet Hunt, Spencer Machacek and Mario Bliznak, playing with Cody Franson and Brendan Mikkelson, and the line proved to be one of the most energized lines all evening. The game itself had some nice flow to it as the players were keeping their noses clean and the refs weren’t out to make any statements. The Chiefs played a close checking game and used their speed to their advantage and had a body on the Giants every time they touched the puck. The Giants however were working very hard along the boards and their defensive play was virtually flawless as the team earned Sexsmith his shut-out by clearing some juicy rebounds before a Spokane stick could get on them.

The Giants opened the scoring on the PP, off of a great forecheck, a sweet pass and nifty back-pass to set-up Tim Kraus for the goal. Michal Repik gamely took the hit to make the play in the corner feeding the puck out to Milan Lucic who took a close-in shot on Kevin Armstrong. Lucic corralled the short rebound and fed the biscuit back to Kraus who pounded it past Armstrong for the tally at 13:30 of the first. The G-Men almost went up by two a few minutes later as Michal Repik re-directed a nice tic-tac-toe play in with his skate. The officials conversed and decided to wave off the goal, even though there was no direct kicking motion and the puck was deflected off the skate blade. Repik did turn his blade to direct the puck past Armstrong, but in the rule book that should be a legal goal. The first ended with the Giants up by one.

The Giants padded their lead in the second, again on the PP, off of some great playmaking in the offensive zone. Kraus wheeled and feathered the puck onto Machacek’s stick. Machacek drifted out in to the slot and wound up letting go of a slapper which found defenseman Jonny Blum’s stick on the far side of the crease. It was Blum’s fourth goal of the season and came 5:05 into the second. The Giants continued to press but the Chiefs were not ones to lay down. The Spokane squad make some great defensive plays of their own clearing the front of the net and chasing down errant pucks. Michael Grabner was only given a couple of opportunities to fly and fly he did. The young RW was adept at finding seams and racing down the ice, and was stoned by Sexsmith on a near breakaway opportunity that he tried to finish off with a nice backhand, only to be denied. Other than that thought the smothering defensive power of the Giants did not give this talented team room to move or make plays, blocking shots and working them hard along the boards.

The G-Men would add an empty-netter late in the third to salt away the victory. The Chiefs bench boss pulled the goalie with close to two minutes left in the game and they managed to keep it out of their net for the majority of the remaining seconds, but not for all of them. With time ticking down Lucic pressed hard in the Spokane zone and forced them to cough up the puck. He was stripped of the puck but managed to get the biscuit back in the high slot and fed a streaking Repik, who potted the EN with 2 seconds remaining in the game. Normally it wouldn’t be worth recapping an empty net goal, but after seeing the relief on Repik’s face, after having one pulled back and numerous denials throughout the night, I felt it was worth giving him his due.

JD Watt after recently receiving an “A”, was a healthy scratch tonight according to Don Hay, who sat the hulking winger for breaking a team cardinal rule, showing up late. Hay felt it was unfair to the other guys to allow that to happen without some consequences and in his inimitable style rewarded the good ones and punished the bad ones. Hay also played the hell out the Bliznak, Hunt, Machacek line putting them out in every situation, and giving them huge minutes in the third including a virtually back-to-back shift late in the third period after they finished working the puck tenaciously in the Chiefs end of the ice. Hunt was all over the ice and had some great checks, the best of which came out of nowhere as he literally upended a surprised David Rutherford in the neutral zone while coming out of the sin bin, after his team killed his penalty. Sexsmith was his usual calm, solidly positioned self, squaring himself to the shooter and making tough saves look easy.

The Giants were 2 for 7 on the PP, while they held the Chiefs 0 for 5 on the man-advantage. The shots were 30 – 19 in the favour of the home team. The Giants play again tomorrow night taking on the Saskatoon Blades who are a very young team with a couple of phenoms to watch for. The puck drops at the Coliseum at 7pm.

Three Stars

1 – Tim Kraus
2 – Tyson Sexsmith
3 – Kevin Armstrong