Former stars lend voices to help Giants stand taller

The Vancouver Giants are off to a start this season in keeping with ones from the franchise’s heyday, and Dylan Plouffe says a team meeting with some players from that era might be part of the reason why.

General manager Barclay Parneta had former Giants Brendan Gallagher, Craig Cunningham and Neil Manning speak to the current roster in training camp and fourth-year defenceman Plouffe says that “those guys helped us get an understanding of what a winning team needs to do.”

“I think that’s what started us off on the right foot,” Plouffe, 19, said of the meeting and this season’s great start. “We needed, I guess, a third party to inform us what it takes to be a good team. Those guys have all had success where ever they’ve gone.”

These Giants carry a 6-1-0-0 mark into a Friday visit to the Langley Events Centre to take on the Kamloops Blazers.

It’s the best campaign start for the Giants since the 2008-09 squad got out of the gate 6-0-0-1. That team, which featured Gallagher, Cunningham and Manning, finished a four-year run of at least 100 points in the regular season that campaign and lost out in the Western Conference final.

The Giants qualified for the playoffs last year, but were ousted in seven games in the first round by the Victoria Royals.

Vancouver’s wins in that Victoria series last spring marked their first playoff game victories since 201112, and the franchise hasn’t won a series since 2009-10, when Gallagher, Cunningham and Manning were all part of a team that again went to the Western Conference final.

“The past few years here have been a struggle,” Plouffe said. “Last year, we showed ourselves something. And now it’s time to show to ourselves that we can move on past that.”

Gallagher is the Giants’ all-time leader in regular-season goals (136) and points (280). Cunningham is third in points (222). Manning is tops in regular-season games played (310), while Cunningham is second (295).

Maybe more importantly for this current group of Giants, the trio played a combined 138 playoff games in Vancouver Giants colours. “They helped us understand what a winning team needs to do and we’re implementing a lot of that,” said Plouffe. “We expect a lot out of each other and we know we have a good team.”