It was another win some, lose some week for the Vancouver Giants at the Langley Events Centre.
The Giants got off to a big start Nov. 10 when they managed to take down the league-leading Prince George Cougers 4-2. The back and forth game saw Giants’ centre James Malm draw first blood late in the first period, set up by Tyler Benson.
The Cougars’ Brad Morrison tied the game, and his teammate, Cole Moberg, gave Prince George a 2-1 lead in the second period. Malm came back again to tie things up, before Dawson Holt and Radovan Bondra put it to bed.
“It just felt like we had a real complete effort from all our players, and we knew that we’d have to have that to have success against Prince George,” said Giants head coach Jason McKee. “It was one of our most complete games of the year.”
They both outshot the Cougars and had a strong defense, McKee said.
The team was still strong for portions of their Nov. 12 game against the Seattle Thunderbirds, but a lack of consistency was the Giants’ problem again, said McKee.
Ethan Bear opened the scoring for the Thunderbirds, and Elijah Brown made it 2-0 just over a minute into the second period. The Giants’ Matt Barberis took a measure of revenge when he stripped Matthew Barzal of the puck and scored an unassisted goal. But by the third period, Seattle was up 4-1.
Then the G-Men rallied, staging a late push with two goals from Marcus Kichton and James Malm.
“We had a real good first 10 minutes and a real good last 10 minutes, and the parts in between I thought we lacked that energy,” said McKee.
The Giants outshot Seattle 29-22, but struggled on the power play, going 0-5.
“We didn’t get enough pucks to the net again,” McKee said.
