The Giants only defeat this young season so far has come on the road in a bizarre OT ending in Seattle. The Vancouver squad maintained that record tonight dominating the Chiefs in their home arena. The teams both drew the short straw in terms of officials as they got Chris Savage and his horrific sense of the game. Savage tried his damnedest to ruin the game tonight, but in the end the two teams showed their mettle and gave the fans a good bout. After defeating perennial BC division foe the Kelowna Rockets handily at the Pacific Coliseum last night the Giants began their longest road trip of the season so far.

The game opened virtually with a penalty as Savage assessed Hunt with a check from behind penalty just 19 secs into the game. The Giants would be the ones who would take advantage, however, as JD Watt while shorthanded stripped the puck off of a Chief in the neutral zone and then stormed the net putting one past highly touted rookie ‘tender Dustin Tokarski. Milan Lucic took on Evan Haw the big D-man from Spokane, in a battle of the big men. Lucic had a few extra shots in the end to marginally take the victory. The teams engaged PPs most of the first and the score remained 1-0 for the Giants after opening period.

The Giants began the second on the PP and were working the puck around the horn quite well tonight, getting off sharper passes than the previous evening and the PP was looking dangerous throughout the first. The Giants scored just 7 secs into the second stanza, as Cody Franson lifted his first of the night past Tokarski. Kraus and Mikkelson got the assists. Spokane would get one back just over two minutes later, on the PP as well, when Canucks top pick Michael Grabner made a beautiful feed to former Giant David Rutherford. Rutherford got it past Tyson Sexsmith for his fourth of the season, at 2:38 of the second. Franson would get that goal back, again on the PP, just under five minutes later in the same period. Putting home a feed from Jason Reese and Jonny Blum, to put the Giants back up by two goals, a lead they would never relinquish in the game.

The Giants salted away the victory in the middle of the third as Watt notched his second of the night, off of some good gritty work by rookie D-man Nolan Toigo and a nice feed from Reese. There was late fight as well in the period that doesn’t seem to be on the official score-sheet, but, J.P. Szaszkiewicz took on Lucic late in the game, they’re calling it roughing but from the sounds of it they dropped the gloves and went toe-to-toe. Lucic was going to get a penalty so when Szaszkiewicz instigated the fight he reluctantly took him on and proceeded to pound him with very little coming back his way. The game would end with the Giants winning 4-1, starting a roll they hope will continue throughout Alberta.

The Giants were 2 for 11 on the PP, while the Chiefs went 1 for 8. Shots were 37-19 in favour of the visitors. Watt scored his 11th and 12th goals tonight, and Cody Franson cemented his position atop his team as points leader. Franson also leads all WHL defensemen in points. Rookie goalie Tokarski earned third star honours for his play throughout the game, a trend that seems to be following the G-Men lately to a point where you have to question whether all those goalies are that good or is the Vancouver team simply making them look good by firing pucks from all over the ice. Once again the Giants PP looked good, but only struck once on 9 opportunities, a few of which were 5 on 3s.

The Giants next game is on Wednesday the 3rd of November in Red Deer at the Enmax Centarium to take on the Rebels. The puck drops 7:00pm MST (6:00pm PST).

Three Stars
1 - Cody Franson
2 – JD Watt
3 – Dustin Tokarski