Rik Fedyck

Holt’s OT heroics give Giants a 3-1 series lead

Dawson Holt has found a new gear in the 2019 WHL playoffs. After putting up six goals in 53 regular season games, he has five goals and seven assists for 12 points in 14 playoff games.

His latest goal – his third so far in the Western Conference final – was the overtime winner in Game 4 in Spokane as the Vancouver Giants won 4-3 and took a commanding 3-1 series lead.

They now have a chance to win the Western Conference on Friday at Langley Event Centre.

Holt has made it a habit to come up big in the playoffs. In Vancouver’s seven game opening round loss to Victoria last season, he had eight points.

His WHL career regular season points-per-game is 0.38, while in the playoffs it is 0.95.

7:07 into overtime, a long pass from Alex Kannok Leipert was chipped by Spokane’s Noah King by Holt, leading to a 2-on-1. With Ty Smith taking away the pass, Holt went blocker side on Spokane goalie Bailey Brkin for the game-winner.

David Tendeck (photo-Rik Fedyck)

“Dawson’s quicker than he gives himself credit for. When he isn’t at his best it’s because he isn’t skating and making things happen. When he’s at his best, he skates and skates fast and he’s physical. When he’s going, he’s got all the tools to back it up,” Vancouver associate coach Jamie Heward said.

Bowen Byram had a goal and an assist, while Davis Koch and Milos Roman each had two assists.

Spokane was all over Vancouver to start the game and was able to take a 2-0 lead into the third period.

“They threw a lot of pucks on net and put us on our heels,” Heward said.

Vancouver though has come up big in the third period before this postseason run. They scored three times in under six minutes of game time. Spokane forced overtime, setting up Holt’s big shot.

Spokane opened the scoring in the first, a period in which they owned 17 of the 22 combined shots.

Adam Beckman picked the puck right off the stick of Dylan Plouffe next to the Vancouver net and then quickly sneaked one in by Vancouver goalie David Tendeck.

Then in the second, Beckman notched another. On a 2-on-1 rush up the ice, he was denied by Tendeck’s glove. After the puck went to the corner though, an active stick by Egor Arbuzov put the puck on Beckman’s stick again and he slipped a nifty backhand by Tendeck for a 2-0 Spokane lead.

“You have to be relatively happy just being down 1-0. Then we give up one in the second that maybe we shouldn’t and we just had to find a way to make some adjustments that were going to allow us to play faster. Our guys were over thinking every aspect of the game,” Heward added.

The Giants roared to life in the third period.

“I thought we had better energy especially in the first period, but our puck play was just okay. We just weren’t sharp on passes and there were some turnovers that gave them momentum… We simplified as much as we could and just said go and leave everything on the ice and see what happens and our guys responded,” Heward said.

With some extended pressure on the Chiefs, the Giants both drew a penalty and caused Brkin to lose his stick. With the extra man on, Tristen Nielsen‘s shot was stopped by Brkin, but Jadon Joseph was there for the close rebound. The stick-less Brkin could do nothing about it.

“Right from the opening draw in the third we were on the hunt. We wanted to at least get a momentum shit that if we didn’t come back, at least we had some momentum going into the game back home,” Heward recalled.

Vancouver built off of that momentum and tied the game up with 10:49 left in regulation.

After Kaden Hanas took a penalty, Byram’s power-play shot deflected off Noah King and by Brkin.

Under a minute later, the Vancouver come back was complete. A chipped forward pass by Justin Sourdif could not be handled by Matt Leduc and Brayden Watts gathered the puck and let go a quick wrist shot that got by Brkin.

Brayden Watts (photo-Rik Fedyck)

Just over 10 minutes into the third period, the Giants had stormed back from a 2-0 deficit and had taken a 3-2 lead.

There was still a lot of time left though for a team like Spokane that never seems to be put away.

That is a perfect description of the game-tying goal that forced the second overtime of the series and fourth OT for the Giants and the Chiefs in the postseason so far.

Ty Smith cut into the Vancouver zone as a Spokane power play coming to an end and had a shot get redirected on Tendeck by Eli Zummack. Riley Woods then followed up twice and finally got the puck by Tendeck and the Vancouver defense.

Both teams had their chances in the extra session, but it was the 19-year-old Holt that found the net.

Game Notes:

-Tendeck stopped 28-of-31 and his 16 saves in the first kept the Giants close.

-Brkin turned away 26-of-30.

-Spokane was 0-for-1 on the power play, while Vancouver went 1-of-2.

-Vancouver was led in shots by Jared Dmytriw‘s five, while Woods and Jake McGrew each had four for Spokane.

Jack Finley went 8-for-18 at the faceoff dot, while Woods was 6-for-12 and Jaret Anderson-Dolan was 7-of-12.

-For Vancouver, Roman was 8-for-15, Joseph was 9-of-12 and Dmytriw was 7-for-13.