Giants face Blazers, ex-coach
Former coach Don Hay could help poke a gaping hole in the Vancouver Giants’ playoff hopes this weekend.
Hay’s Kamloops Blazers have a home-and-home set against the Giants, starting with a matchup at the Pacific Coliseum on Friday (7:30 p.m., TSN 1040). The teams then head to Kamloops for a game on Saturday (7 p.m., TSN 1410).
Kamloops (24-22-5-3) holds down the eighth and final playoff spot in the WHL’s Western Conference, eight points up on Vancouver (21-28-4-2). Kamloops also has a game in hand.
Vancouver’s 17 games remaining include five against the Blazers. There are various combinations at play, especially with the TriCity Americans (25-25-2-1) sitting between Kamloops and Vancouver, five points up on the Giants. It’s easy to suggest, though, that Vancouver will need to beat the Blazers at least four times down the stretch to have a shot at the playoffs.
Vancouver is 2-1-0-0 versus Kamloops this season, with both wins in overtime. The Giants were 3-3-0-2 against the Blazers last season, Hay’s first back in Kamloops, his original WHL coaching spot. He had guided the Giants for 10 seasons, highlighted by winning the 2007 Memorial Cup, but he was let out of the last year of his contract in May 2014 so that he could rejoin the Blazers.
Vancouver has missed the playoffs two of the past three seasons. Kamloops was the other Western Conference squad to miss out in 2014-15.
The Giants are expected to have centre Dawson Holt, 16, back in the lineup Friday.
He’s been sidelined since Dec. 13 with an upper-body injury.
Holt has no goals and five assists through 24 games this season, but he’s been a better player than his numbers. He was a full participant at practice on Thursday, skating on what amounts to Vancouver’s No. 2 line, between Radovan Bondra, 19, and Alec Baer, 18.
The Giants’ top line continues to feature 28-goal man Ty Ronning, 18, teaming with Trevor Cox, 20, to flank pivot Chase Lang, 19.
Lang has five goals and three assists in Vancouver’s past five games.
Centre Thomas Foster (upper-body injury) skated on Thursday with his Giants teammates but in a yellow, non-contact jersey. Left winger Tyler Benson (lower-body injury) and defenceman Matt Barberis (upperbody injury) didn’t take to the ice with the team.