After getting away with a poor performance the night prior, the Vancouver Giants weren’t so lucky on Sunday evening.
The Lethbridge Hurricanes, featuring the likes of Dylan Cozens and Calen Addison, outplayed the home squad in just about every facet of the game en route to a 6-0 drubbing.
“We expected what we saw from them,” Giants coach Michael Dyck said postgame.
“They’re a good team. They’re a better team on paper than we are and a better team than we are. I don’t know if they’re six goals better but that’s what we expected,” Dyck continued.
Vancouver mustered just 17 shots on goal to Lethbridge’s 40. Only a few of them were legitimate scoring opportunities, including a shorthanded breakaway from Milos Roman that was impressively stopped by Hurricanes goaltender Carl Tetachuk.
Dyck, a former head coach/assistant coach with Lethbridge, complimented his former team’s strength and size which were visible Sunday.
“I thought we bounced back and we had glimpses of momentum, but they’re bigger, they’re stronger, and we got pushed to the outside,” Dyck said.
The Hurricanes saw six different skaters find the back of the net, but it was the first two goals that were back breakers due to bad bounces.
Zack Stringer, a 16-year-old, opened the scoring 3:06 into the second period off of what looked to be an innocent backhand on net. It took a couple of weird hops off of Trent Miner’s pads and glove and found its way in.
The second goal, less than two minutes after Stringer’s goal, was the one that really summed up the evening for the Giants.
Jett Jones was the beneficiary of Giants overage defenceman Dylan Plouffe losing an edge as he went to skate the puck around his own net. The rookie forward was able to bounce on the loose puck right in front of Miner for his third career WHL goal.
Lethbridge also added goals from Dino Kambeitz, Oliver Okuliar, Logan Barlage, and Noah Boyko.
“We didn’t stop the bleeding fast enough” was how Giants captain Alex Kannok Leipert started to explain his team’s performance.
“We needed a few bounce-back shifts but we didn’t get the puck deep, we didn’t forecheck, we didn’t get into our game. They kind of ran our show,” the Washington Capitals prospect continued.
The aforementioned Cozens, who was selected seventh overall by the Buffalo Sabres in last June’s draft, was held off the scoresheet but managed to register four shots on goal and was impressive away from the puck.
As for the first star of the night, Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Calen Addison carried the flow of the play almost every time he had the puck. He was noticeable all night while collecting two assists, one of which came on the Barlage power-play goal.
Vancouver gave up six power plays to Lethbridge after surrendering seven the night before. They lead the league in times shorthanded, 16 ahead of the Red Deer Rebels, who have the second-most.
The Giants seemed as though they had their penalty struggles under wraps after having trouble staying out of the box to start the year. Those tendencies appear to be creeping back into this team’s game.
“Sticking penalties, things like that, you don’t need. We have to move our feet. Little things that we can definitely change, we’re just not keying in on those details,” Kannok Leipert said regarding the team’s penalty trouble this weekend.
He continued, “It’s definitely something we need to work on. Obviously we had trouble with that at the start of the season and we got better, but now we have to get rid of that bad habit or it’s going to bite us in the butt.”
Fortunately, the Giants were able to kill 12 of the 13 penalties they were assessed this weekend but are going to have to tighten it up as they travel down to Portland for a mid-week matchup on Wednesday night.
The Winterhawks just so happen to boast the best power play in the WHL. It is clicking at a 25.3% clip so far this season, yet they went 0-for-8 on the power play in last weekend’s home-and-home with Vancouver.
After this weekend’s performances, the Giants have no choice but to up their game for Wednesday as Portland has the capability to do to Vancouver what the Hurricanes did on Sunday — something Kannok Leipert is fully aware of.
“We weren’t consistent this weekend. We have to realize it’s going to take the same effort every night to be a good team in this league. We’re definitely going to learn from this, because if we do this against Portland, they’re going to do the same thing,” the captain said.
Things aren’t going to get any easier for Vancouver after Wednesday as their next game has them hosting the Edmonton Oil Kings who have been atop the WHL for the majority of the season.
As much as this squad needs to forget about their lackluster performances this weekend, they need to keep the sting of this defeat with them going into the Rose City.
Kannok Leipert ended his thoughts by saying, “We have to remember this feeling because it sucks. Losing at home, getting doubled up on shots like that, we definitely have to realize it’s going to take every guy every single night or else teams will just walk all over us. We have to be a lot better.”
