At the beginning of the season, a lot of WHL players look at the calendar to see where the three-in-threes are. John Tortorella might wax poetic about his Canucks being a tired team after five games in nine nights, but when was the last time an NHLer hit the ice on three consecutive nights?
The Vancouver Giants ended 2013 with a threefer, taking four of a possible six points despite travelling on the bus between each game. Sunday was the final game of the calendar year for the G-Men, and they made it count with a 5–2 win over the visiting Prince George Cougars. Jared Rathjen made 27 stops for his eighth win of the season, while both Carter Popoff and Thomas Foster had a goal and an assist at the other end of the rink.
It’s a game they should have won, but on that third night in a row, you never know which of the legs or the heart will show up. Sometimes you get both. Sometimes you get neither.
With the win, the Giants go into 2014 at five games over .500 and sit seventh place in the Western Conference. Their 45 points are one more than they had all last year, when they finished in the league basement. Making it all the more remarkable is the fact that the Giants started this year with a dismal 1–9 stretch to start the season. Since then, they’ve played solid two-way hockey, and gone 18–5–7.
More after the break.
This weekend, the Giants beat the Kamloops Blazers 4–3 on the road before bussing south to spank the Cougars. The only black mark was a 4–2 loss to Kelowna. The league-leading Rockets redefine the term ‘special teams’, and Friday was no exception. They scored thrice in six chances with the man advantage and once short-handed to boot, while the Giants were held scoreless in their four power plays.
It was a rough matchup, with over 100 penalty minutes handed out over the course of the game. Vancouver’s Shaun Dosanjh received five and a game for a check to the head in the third period, and got a two-game suspension in supplemental discipline from the WHL afterward.
The next Giants home game is Friday, January 3 when they once again host the 31–3 Kelowna Rockets.
