A strong buy-in from throughout the lineup and 37 saves from goaltender Brett Mirwald led the Vancouver Giants to a 3-1 win over the Portland Winterhawks on Friday night at the Langley Events Centre, making it six straight victories for the G-Men.
Vancouver’s regulation win over the top team in the western conference also stretches their point streak to 10 games, during which they are 9-0-1, the team’s effort Friday once again impressing head coach Manny Viveiros.
“These kids come to work every single day and they put the time in. I always say if you put the time in and work the proper way, you can’t help but improve. Credit to the kids. We were missing two real key players to our lineup tonight and other guys stepped up and played really well for us. I like where we’re going. I really do. I could get used to this,” he said after Friday’s game.
This victory shifted the Giants overall record to 26-24-3-0 in the season, and 13-3-1 since New Year’s Day.
“I don’t think we’ve reached our ceiling as of yet. There’s a lot of little fine details in our game that we can improve on, especially at this age,” Viveiros said.
“These kids are always learning and trying to get better every single day. As a group, as a team, that’s something that each game, each week we can continue to improve, improve and if we’re lucky enough to get into the playoffs, that’s where you want to be at your best form and that’s something that we’re striving for.”
Vancouver still emerged victorious even though they had notably fewer shots on goal. While the Giants only fired 25 shots at the Portland net (12/7/6), Portland shot 38 – 37 of which goalie Brett Mirwald is once again credited with stopping, even impressing his fellow players, like forward Connor Levis.
“First and foremost, [Mirwald] played an amazing game. He made some incredible stops, which really helps with the confidence in our team here. But we defended really well. That’s important,” Levis shared after the game.
“Portland’s a pretty offensive team and when you’re doing that really well, you’re going to have some offensive chances as well…when you’re focusing on the defence, you’re shutting off their transition. We were going to have some pretty good opportunities to create some odd-man rushes. We were able to do that off [Hammett’s] goal there and make it a 2-1 game there. That was super important for us to pull off the win,” he said.
Next up for the Giants is tonight’s game, underway in Portland.
Then on Family Day on Monday, the Giants host the Spokane Chiefs for Country Day at 2 p.m. at the Langley Events Centre. Tickets are available online.
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GAME SUMMARY
Vancouver opened the scoring on a power play midway through the first period, after Adam Titlbach fired a shot from the left circle after entering off the rush, which created a rebound off Portland’s goaltender Jan Spunar.
Tyson Zimmer was able to knock the puck out of mid-air and into the net after the rebound landed on the edge of the crease, making it 1-0 for the Giants at the 13:11 mark.
That was the only goal of the first period.
The Giants made it 2-0 7:38 into the second after Logen Hammett started a rush from his own end, eventually dishing the puck to his right to Connor Levis, who returned it to Hammett for an easy tap-in.
After 40 minutes, the Giants led 2-0, while the shots on goal favoured Portland 27-19.
The Winterhawks got one back early in the third, after Josh Mori’s point shot found its way through some traffic just 2:16 in to make it 2-1.
Although Portland gained a bit of momentum, the Giants were able to get some back themselves and eventually went ahead by two goals for the second time in the game, thanks to another goal off the rush.
It was led by Ty Halaburda, who played pitch and catch with Mazden Leslie a couple times before Leslie – who was the trailer on a 3-on-1 – one-timed it low past Spunar.
Portland pushed, but then took a penalty when their own net was empty with just under two minutes left, pretty much ensuring there wouldn’t be a comeback.
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