Missed opportunities.
They’ve been killing this Vancouver Giants team.
The Giants dropped their second game of the weekend Sunday evening in a 3-1 loss to the Victoria Royals to bring them back down to .500 (7-7), and it wasn’t due to a lack of chances.
“If we could bury our opportunities and hit the net when we have them, maybe it’s a different hockey game.” said head coach Michael Dyck about his team on Sunday. “We had some great opportunities. We hit a crossbar point blank and we miss the net. We have to finish those.”
Last year’s team that went all the way to Game 7 of the WHL Final, in a game such as this one, had the secondary scoring to support the top guys when they couldn’t get the job done offensively. So far this squad, which sports the second youngest forward group in the WHL, isn’t equipped with such a luxury. The opportunities the top scorers encounter need to be finished off.
“We don’t have the depth and the scoring we had last year, so the opportunities we get, we have to make the most of,” Dyck said.
Vancouver got off to a quick start despite being on the tail end of a three-in-three weekend, not letting Victoria out of their zone for about a minute and a half early on.
The Royals were the ones to open the game’s scoring when fourth year Royals defenceman Mitch Prowse slid a shot from the left faceoff dot through David Tendeck’s legs for his first of the 2019-20 season.
A good amount of NHL team representatives were on hand to take in the afternoon contest, most notably Calgary Flames Assistant General Manager Brad Pascall, presumably to keep an eye on Milos Roman who is an unsigned Flames prospect. Arizona Coyotes scouts were also in attendance to keep watch over David Tendeck whom they selected in the sixth round of the 2018 NHL Entry Draft. Tendeck is also currently unsigned.
Victoria doubled its lead off the stick of Langley, BC, native Sean Gulka at 18:17 of the first on the power play. Gulka took a Nolan Jones pass from the point after a failed clearing attempt from Vancouver, making no mistake all alone, putting one five hole on Tendeck. The goal ended up being the game winner. With that goal and an assist on the Prowse goal, Gulka earned the first star on the night.
The middle frame did not see any offence but did see the Giants successfully kill all three penalties they received — an area they struggled with on Friday, allowing four goals on eight power plays. However, they did not allow any on three opportunities the next night against Swift Current.
Victoria led the shots 19-13 after 40 minutes.
The home squad showed pushback throughout the 3rd period down by two goals.
One shift in particular stood out with about 13 minutes left in regulation from the Shepard brothers and Milos Roman. They held sustained pressure in the Royals’ end and looked poised to cut the deficit in half, but Victoria goaltender Brock Gould had other ideas. Gould, who will be 18 in December, was solid all night, bringing a shutout to the 18:38 mark of the third.
Giants captain Alex Kannok-Leipert found himself banging away in front of the net with the Giants’ net empty for the extra attacker and battled his way to his first goal of the season to bring his team within one goal late.
Despite good pressure in the dying seconds and more missed nets, Victoria was able to put the game away. Tarun Fizer skated the puck into the empty net to bring the game out of reach at 3-1 and give Victoria first blood in the first of ten meetings during this 2019-20 season.
On To The Next…
Vancouver will finally be able to get back into their regular routine this week. They had not had much time to get reps in between getting home from their East Division trip and having to head right up to Kamloops this past Friday.
“It’s going to be important,” Dyck said on being able to get regular practices in. “It’s been a busy month, so it’ll be nice to get back into a routine at home and get back to practicing.”
The next challenge for Dyck’s squad is the Western Conference leading Everett Silvertips at home on Friday night.
Everett is one of the hottest teams in the WHL with a record of 8-3-0-0 in their 11 games so far.
“They’re firing at all cylinders right now,” Dyck said about Everett. “They are playing extremely well and are one of the top teams in that US Division, so we’ll get an opportunity to watch them and practice and get ready for them.”
