Giants get look in mirror against Glass
Vancouver will find out how much its defensive play has improved when WHL’s best player visits
Cody Glass and his cohorts should give the Langley Events Centre faithful a good idea of just where the Vancouver Giants’ checking game is.
Glass, a centre with the Portland Winterhawks, is undoubtedly the WHL’s best player. The Vegas Golden Knights made him the sixth overall selection in the 2017 NHL Draft, one spot after the Vancouver Canucks took Elias Pettersson.
Glass has a head-shaking 18 points, including three goals, through his first seven games of the year with the Winterhawks. He produced 37 goals and 102 points in 64 regular season games last year for Portland.
He is the kind of player, and the Winterhawks are the kind of team — with offensive-minded coach Mike Johnston at the controls — that provides the ideal challenge for the Giants, who have designs on a playoff run this spring and need to tighten up defensively to make that happen.
The Giants (9-1-1-0) and Winterhawks (5-3-0-1) play a home-and-home to kick off a three-game weekend for Vancouver. The Giants visit the Moda Center (7 p.m., Sportsnet 650) on Friday, with the Winterhawks returning the favour Saturday (7 p.m., Spice 1200) with their first of two visits this season to the Langley Events Centre.
“Portland’s a well-coached team. Portland’s a very good team. Our players and our staff will both get a chance to see where we are at,” Vancouver general manager Barclay Parneta said.
Vancouver, with an abundance of team speed and a puck-moving defence, showed offensive flash and flair last season. They have several key players back from the group that became the first Giants team to make the playoffs in four springs, losing out in seven games in the first round to the Victoria Royals in the process.
Michael Dyck, who came on board as head coach in the off-season, has been stressing the need for players to pick their spots offensively and play with structure in their own zone, and there’s been some progression in that regard already.
Vancouver netminders have had to make 30 or more saves in a game twice this season. They did it in 41 of 72 league games last season.
They have limited scoring opportunities with veteran defenceman Matt Barberis (upper body injury), one of their three overagers, missing from the lineup for seven games and counting.
Parneta said Thursday that Barberis might start skating on his own next week.
Best case, he is still another couple of weeks away from returning to the lineup.
Portland also features left winger Joachim Blichfield, who has 22 points, including eight goals, through nine games. As well, the Winterhawks are the new home to longtime Giants coach Don Hay, who parted ways with the Kamloops Blazers over the summer and later signed on as Johnston’s top assistant.
Portland also comes to the LEC on Feb. 18.
Glass is a strong bet to make Team Canada for the world juniors. That tournament gets going at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena and SaveOn-Food Memorial in Victoria on Boxing Day.
Glass will be a teammate of Giants defenceman Bowen Byram and goaltender David Tendeck with Team WHL for the Canada-Russia Series, which Hockey Canada has tagged as part of the world junior evaluation process.
They play Nov. 5 in Kamloops and Nov. 6 at the LEC.
The Giants wrap up this weekend on Sunday (4 p.m., Sportsnet 650) playing host to the Kelowna Rockets at the LEC.