SHHH, DON’T TELL ANYONE ... BUT THE VANCOUVER GIANTS ARE BACK
Team now expects to win games after years of missing the playoffs, Ed Willes writes.
Glen Hanlon, ever the cagey veteran, will tell you it’s all a matter of interpretation when it comes to assessing the Vancouver Giants these days.
Surprised? No, the Giants’ GM wouldn’t say he’s overly surprised his team has emerged as a legitimate contender this year after three straight years of missing the playoffs. Surprise indicates you weren’t expecting success, and that wasn’t the case this year.
“Can we think of a better word?” Hanlon says.
OK, how about ‘unanticipated’? It’s a similar story with the WHL trade deadline. Hanlon states the Giants weren’t exactly buyers this week in positioning themselves for the stretch drive — not when Moose Jaw, Regina, Portland and Tri-City were going all in for some of the biggest names in the league. But, in adding point-a-game forward Davis Koch and veteran defenceman Brennan Riddle, the Giants believe they’ve set themselves up for a playoff run, even if that run was, erm, ‘unanticipated’ at the start of the season.
“Our plan was to see what was going to happen,” Hanlon says. “We weren’t really buyers in the sense we were going to risk our organization for the next five years to do something.”
You can, in fact, play this game with the old goalie on any number of subjects and you’ll get similar responses. But to understand the Giants’ motivation these days, simply look at the standings — where the Giants are battling the eternally formidable Kelowna Rockets for first place in the B.C. Division — or venture out to Langley where they edged the Rockets 3-2 on Saturday night in the franchise’s biggest regular-season game in forever.
The plain fact is, no matter how they got there, the Giants have arrived this season. Maybe that registers as a bit of a surprise (other terms to consider: wonder, curiosity, shock) but they have a shot, and considering their recent history, that qualifies as a happy story for a market that could use a happy hockey story.
“We hadn’t shown enough in the past couple of years to say we’re going to win six or seven in row or nine out of 10,” Hanlon says. “But we got on a roll before Christmas and now the expectation is we’re going to win.
“It’s just a mental thing. We had it here for awhile, but losing it and getting it back is harder than getting it in the first place. We’re not the favourites, but I think we can do some damage.”
The Giants (25-14-5-2, 56 pts.), in fact, find themselves on a 15-5-2 run following the win over Rockets (27-14-2-1, 57 pts.) and a quick inventory of their lineup reveals they have the ingredients common to a championshipcalibre team.
In Ty Ronning, who potted his 40th on Saturday night and is on pace to become the first 50-goal scorer in franchise history, they have an elite scorer.
In Tyler Benson, whose earlier career was derailed by injuries, they have an elite playmaker.
There’s scoring depth with James Malm, who scored the game-winner against the Rockets, the injured Milos Roman and now Koch, who was acquired from the Edmonton Oil Kings. And the blue-line features a nice mix of size and skill — Dylan Plouffe had 34 points in his first 44 games — and experience and youth — Bowen Byram projects as an NHL first-rounder in 2019.
Still, the spark to the Giants’ resurgence has been David Tendeck, the goalie from North Van who’s played his way on to the radar for this summer’s NHL draft. Originally splitting the workload with Todd Scott, Tendeck took over the net at the start of December and never gave it back. He is 17-7-2 on the season with a .911 save percentage and his play also allowed Hanlon to flip Scott to the Oil Kings in the package for Koch.
He was also the difference on Saturday night, making one more stop than the Rockets’ James Porter, including a highlight-reel sequence in the third.
“(Tendeck) had progressed, but in the last six weeks he’s just taken off,” Hanlon says. “When you get the goaltending, it solves a lot of problems.”
He would know. In five decades in the game Hanlon has filled every conceivable role — from No. 1 goalie in hockey-mad New York and Detroit to NHL assistant to head coach of the Washington Capitals — to a few that were inconceivable to a kid from Brandon — head coach in Minsk and the Belarusian national team. Now, at 60, he’s done some solid work in reviving the Giants, playing a role in hiring head coach Jason McKee, surrounding him with experienced hands like assistant coach Dean Chynoweth and trainer Mike Burnstein and staying the course with players who hadn’t known a lot of success as Giants.
“He stuck with it,” Giants owner Ron Toigo said. “Most guys want to change everything and they end up doing more damage.
“We’re all happy with where we are now. It’s been awhile since we’ve been able to say that.”
Then again, everything around the Giants seems to be coming up rainbows and gumdrops these days. After the dismal attendance in Buffalo, N.Y., at the recently concluded world junior championship, organizers for the 2019 event in Vancouver and Victoria report brisk sales. Tickets for the Victoria games are about 80 per cent sold and the Vancouver games are pushing 70 per cent.
True, selling the WJC in Canada is like selling air conditioners in Phoenix, but after three straight last-place divisional finishes for the Giants, it’s another happy story for junior hockey in the Lower Mainland.
Not that it wasn’t expected.