Vancouver Giants lost 5-3 to the Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday night at the Langley Events Centre before more than 5,000 fans.
Head Coach Manny Viveiros said the team played a better game against Victoria earlier in the week, when Giants lost 4-2.
“We didn’t have everybody come to play tonight, that was a big thing,” Viveiros commented.
“We had some passengers. Quite simply, we’re not good enough if we don’t have everybody come to play. This is a five-man league. You’ve got five guys on the ice and you can’t play with three guys. The league is too good. Like I said before, at lower levels you can get away with that, you have two players who can dominate that shift, but here you can’t do that. Here when you have guys who are not up to speed, then you’re not going to have success.”
Giants entered the third period tied 3-3, but surrendered a power play marker at the 7:26 mark that held up as the game-winning-goal.
Vancouver forwards Cameron Schmidt, Tyler Thorpe and Aaron Oboabifo provided the offence for the Giants.
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The Oil Kings struck first, in the final minute of the opening period.
Vancouver responded by scoring twice in the first six minutes of the second period.
Colton Alain took advantage of a bad Oil Kings change, firing a pass from blue line to blue line up ahead to Justin Ivanusec, who left the puck for Schmidt. Schmidt snapped a shot past the glove side of Kolby Hay to tie the game 1-1.
Minutes later, Marek Howell moved the puck up ahead to Thorpe at the offensive blue line, who cut towards the middle and let a quick shot go that made it 2-1 for Vancouver.
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A few minutes later, Edmonton scored twice in 30 seconds, including one by Langley native Matthew Gallant, who scored his second of the season off a point shot to make it 3-2 for Edmonton
With exactly five minutes to go, Schmidt and Obobaifo connected on the equalizer, as the former came out from behind the net on the left side and zipped a pass across to Obobaifo, who settled down the puck and beat Hay for his fourth of the season.
At the tail end of a Giants penalty kill in the third period, Edmonton would score the eventual game-winning-goal, then add an empty-net goal to make the final score 5-3.
Giants close out their week on the road on Sunday, Dec. 31 with a New Year’s Eve clash in Portland against the Winterhawks at 5 p.m.
Their next home game is set for Wednesday, Jan. 3 against the Calgary Hitmen, which will be their last game at the LEC until Jan. 21, as they’ll embark on a two-week road trip to Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
