Vancouver Giants’ Krz Plummer scored his first Western Hockey League goal and it stood as the game winner as Vancouver defeated the Victoria Royals 2-1.
A close game saw no holiday rust from the two divisional rivals and, as usual, felt like a tight playoff game between these two clubs.
For Victoria, they were not happy with their start to the game and felt it was the difference. In the first period, the Royals only managed four shots on Vancouver starting goalie David Tendeck. “Good effort, but not in the full 60 [minutes],” said Royals captain Phillip Schultz. “We didn’t start on time and we paid for that in the end. That’s not good enough.”
Victoria defenceman Mitch Prowse added, “We needed a better start tonight. Right off the bat, they came out a lot faster than us. A lot of that is on me and the rest of the leaders on the team. We were not quite ready off the start tonight and we’ve got to be better.”
Vancouver opened the scoring midway through the first period.
Milos Roman made a nice play from behind the net to find Justin Sourdif for the tap-in past Royals starting goalie Shane Farkas. The goal at 11:24 gave the Giants a 1-0 lead.
Shortly after, Tarun Fizer was dumped heavily in the Giants zone. Slow to get up, Fizer eventually made it to the blue line where, fortuitously, the puck came to him. Turning around, he went in 2-on-1 with Kaid Oliver on Tendeck. Fizer made the pass to Oliver who made no mistake to tie the game at 13:47.
The second period saw some back-and-forth action at a good pace, but Shane Farkas and Tendeck kept the period scoreless
The scoring stalemate continued into the third until a turnover in the Royals zone. Victoria forward Carson Miller was muscled off the puck by Holden Katzalay in front of the Victoria net. The puck slipped directly to Plummer who scored his first WHL goal. That goal at 10:28 of the third period gave Vancouver the 2-1 lead and put an end to some pressure the home team was mounting.
Plummer’s goal stood as the winner for Vancouver, as the Royals tried to pull the game even with Farkas on the bench but were unsuccessful.
With the victory, the Giants move to within two points of 3rd place in the BC Division, a spot currently held by Victoria. However, the Royals have 2 games in hand.
Vancouver’s next game is Saturday night versus the Kelowna Rockets. Vancouver will look to improve on their record against the BC Division, which now sits at 6-5-1-0
The Royals will face the Prince George Cougars on Saturday at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. Victoria will try to break their two-game losing skid. Despite their record, the Cougars are no pushover and are riding a three-game win streak.
“All the games against PG this year have been tough games,” said Schultz. “Their record maybe doesn’t show it but they’re one of the toughest teams to play against. They compete so hard, so we need to have a way better start and outcompete them.”
