Giants Tame Tigers

Former Canuck Coach Willie Desjardins brought his Medicine Hat Tigers  (10-5-1-0) to the LEC in hopes of leaving town with two points.

The Giants (9-8-1-0) had other ideas and given the stellar play of Giants “tender” Trent Miner who stopped 33 shots through 60 minutes the Giants earned a 5-2 victory in as many days earning his fourth win of the 2019-20 season.

Both Milos Roman and Lukas Svejkovsky each netted one goal along with one assist, while Tigers Nick McCarry and Trevor Longo managed one goal each for the visiting Tigers.

Giants Nielsen collected his 9th goal of the season opened the scoring at 13:13 that saw him knock a rebound, which ironically his own past a shocked Mads Søgaard of the Tigers while Milos Roman had the only assist. 

Vancouver outshot the Tigers after one by a 9-3 margin that saw the officials deal out a pair of minors to the Tigers and one to the Giants.

Tigers forward Nick McCarry notched his third of the season with the eaquizer at 1:17 with Brett Kemp setting up a nifty cross-ice pass for the only assist on the goal.

The Giants regained the lead with Zack Ostapchuk managing his second of the early season at 16:45 after he managed to redirect Lukas Svejkovsky shot from the corner.

The second was a reversal for shots as the Tigers managed to get a “Tiger In Their Tank” that saw them outshot the Giants by a 16-9 margin with the G-men leading 19-18 through two periods.

Giants Dylan Plouffe collected his fifth of the season and third goal of the weekend at 3:02 extending the Giants lead to 3-1 as Evan Patrician extended his point-streak to three games with the lone assist on the marker.

The Tigers Trevor Longo managed to get the visitors within one at 15:17 on the PP but that was as close as they would come, limping away on the losing end of the game.

Svejkovsky managed an E-N goal after taking a pass at the Giants blueline his fourth of the season while Milos Roman finished it off with a shorthanded EN marker at 19:37 for the win.

The Tigers outshot the Giants in the third by a 16-8 margin controlling the shot total in the game by a 35-26 margin, still managing to come up somewhat short.

Giants Trent Miner faced 35 shots stopping 33 for a record of 4-4-1-0, while Tigers Mads Søgaard faced 24, stopping 21 finishing with a record of 6-5-1-0.

Vancouver was 0/2 on the PP while the Tigers were 1/6 on the PP, which clearly isn’t good enough for Major Junior Hockey.

The three (3) Stars in the game were

• Trent Miner (VAN – 33 Saves)
• Zack Ostapchuk (VAN – 1 Goal, +1, 2PIMS)
• Evan Patrician (VAN – 1 Assist, +2, 2 Shots)

Next Giants Game: Friday night at home against the Portland Winterhawks at 7:30 PM.

NOTES:

• The Giants improved their record to 2-0 against Central division teams in 2019-20.
• Trent Miner is now 3-0-1-0 in his past four appearances.
• Over the course of his three-game point streak, Evan Patrician has recorded four assists.
• In his previous six games, Giants Dylan Plouffe has tallied four (4) goals and three (3) assists for seven points.

On a side-note we hear that Giants GM Barclay Parneta announced the Giants have acquired 2001-born forward Joona Kiviniemi (Oulo, FIN) from the Swift Current Broncos in exchange for 2001-born forward Sergei Alkhimov and a sixth-round pick in 2020.

JOONA KIVINIEMI’S WHL BIO

He was originally selected by Swift Current in the first-round (59^th overall) in the 2018 CHL Import Draft. 

Thanks to Dan O’Connor for the press release