After finishing dead last with a dismal 44 points just a year ago, the Vancouver Giants made massive strides, improved by 31 points and nabbed the seventh seed in the WHL Western Conference. The season featured a brutal 1-9 start, a remarkable run through the middle of the schedule that saw the G-Men threaten the top four for home ice advantage in the first round, and a home stretch full of injuries and inconsistent play.
Such is the way of the world in junior hockey during a rebuilding phase.
So what does a seventh place finish get you? A dance card full of scoring leaders, defensive stalwarts and Team Canada representatives, that’s what. The Portland Winterhawks are the defending WHL champions, and despite losing stud blueliner Seth Jones to the Nashville Predators, they’re an absolute juggernaut when they’re firing on all cylinders.
The Winterhawks boast two of the top three scorers in the WHL; Nicolas Petan and Oliver Bjorkstrand finished the season with 113 and 109 points in 63 and 69 games, respectively. Throw highly respected prospects like Derrick Pouliat, Brendan Leipsic and Mathew Dumba, and you’ve got an intimidating squad coming at you for sixty minutes. The Hawks are doubly dangerous, as they feel they should have performed better at last year’s Memorial Cup — they want to right that wrong with a national championship trophy.
Needless to say, the Giants came into this series as huge underdogs. Although they’ve played Portland hard a couple of times, Vancouver haven’t beaten the Hawks in two full seasons. The first two games of the series, held at the Moda Center in the Rose City this weekend, were about as one-sided as you’d expect: the Hawks pumped 88 shots at Vancouver netminder Payton Lee, and allowed just 31 shots the other way. The Giants nearly pulled off a surprise win in game one, scoring thrice on 16 shots on Brendan Burke and looked to be heading to sudden death overtime, but allowed the backbreaking game-winning goal by Oliver Bjorkstrand with less than two minutes to play. Burke didn’t let the Giants score against the flow of play in game two, shutting the door for a 3-0 win.
Games three and four go Tuesday and Wednesday nights at the Pacific Coliseum, with the Giants looking to force at least a return trip to Portland. They’ll need Lee to continue his impressive play between the pipes, and even more push from defenceman Brett Kulak, who recently signed a three-year, multimillion dollar deal with the Calgary Flames.
Ron Toigo, co-owner of the Giants, has made it clear that the team is hoping to land the 2016 Memorial Cup tournament. A win or two in this series would not only encourage the development of these young players for next season, but go a long way to convincing the tournament committee to grant Vancouver hosting duties for the second time. The last time the Memorial Cup tournament was played at the Pacific Coliseum, of course, was in 2007 when Milan Lucic helped guide the hometown Giants to the franchise’s sole national championship.
