Power play fuels Giants win in Game 3
Vancouver tops Kamloops 3-2 on home ice after losing the first two games on the road
The Vancouver Giants' power play reboot worked, apparently. The Giants, who went 0-for-8 with the man advantage in the first two games of their WHL Western Conference semifinal series with the Kamloops Blazers, went 2-for-2 with the extra man Tuesday and beat the Blazers 3-2 before a crowd of 3,211 at the Langley Events Centre.
Vancouver had spent an extended part of Monday's practice working on their power play.
Kamloops still leads the series 2-1. Game 4 is Thursday at the LEC.
Alex Cotton hammered home a shot from the left faceoff circle at 16:36 of the third period to clinch the victory. It came just nine seconds after Connor Levis had gone into the box for Kamloops for a high-sticking minor.
Ty Thorpe banked a shot in off a Kamloops defender during a scramble on a power play at 15:55 of the second period.
Justin Lies had Vancouver's other goal.
Fraser Minten and Drew Englot scored for Kamloops. There was a scramble around the Vancouver net with 3.7 seconds left that needed a lengthy video review but officials ruled that the puck had not crossed the line.
The Blazers (48-17-3-0) are the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, finishing 46 points ahead of No. 8 Vancouver (24-39-5-0), who landed the final playoff spot by a single point on the final night of the regular season.
Vancouver beat the No. 1 seeded Everett Silvertips (4513-5-5), who finished the regular season one point ahead of Kamloops, in six games in the opening round.
COACHES PARTAKE IN BATTLE OF WITS
The matching of wits between Giants coach Michael Dyck and Blazers coach Shaun Clouston was particularly prevalent waiting for the opening faceoff the second period.
Vancouver had four or five forwards milling around by their bench, waiting for the officials to call the teams to centre ice for the faceoff. Vancouver eventually sent Ty Thorpe and Kyle Bochek to the circle.
They had played the first period with Fabian Lysell and Clouston had used his veteran defensive pairing Quinn Schmiemann and Ethan Brandwood against that line in the first.
Clouston sent out Schmiemann and Brandwood to start and Dyck had Lies join Thorpe and Bochek up front instead of Lysell.
Lysell, Zack Ostapchuk and Adam Hall have been Vancouver's top line in this series. They were superb against Everett, putting up 14 goals and 41 points.
With Schmiemann and Brandwood leading the way, Kamloops had largely blanketed the Vancouver trio in Game 1. Dyck was looking to get them going and spread out of the Vancouver offence at the same time and he split them up in Game 2 at times, putting Lies with Ostapchuk and Hall and Lysell with Thorpe and Bochek.
On Tuesday it was largely Ethan Semeniuk with Ostapchuk and Hall, while Lysell was mostly with Thorpe and Bochek.
RESPECTIVE RIVALS
Lysell and Stankoven had a spirited conversation going back to their respective benches with 8:16 gone in the first period. Lysell, who was a Boston Bruins' first-round pick this past summer, and Stankoven, who was a Dallas Stars second-round choice, talked about having a rivalry ahead of this series.
“He's a pretty special player. Just so skilled, the way he can skate, he can shoot. He sees the ice really well. It just goes to show why he's a first rounder,” Stankoven, 19, told Kamloops This Week's Marty Hastings.
“For me, it just kind of makes me even hungrier because I want to be better than him and, hopefully, have a better season, have a better playoffs, than that guy and make sure they don't get past the second round because we want to go all the way with this thing.”
BREAKING THROUGH
Count Bochek among the breakthrough performances for Vancouver in these playoffs. He split the regular season between Vancouver and the Melville Millionaires, playing 30 games with the Giants and 25 with the Saskatchewan Junior A team.
Injuries have played a role in him getting increased ice time in Vancouver, but he's been a force on the forecheck and also diligent defensively. He has one goal and one assist in the post-season.
IN AND OUT
Toporowski, who left Game 1 at the end of the first period with what seemed to be a shoulder injury after crashing into the end wall behind Vikman, was back in the Kamloops lineup Tuesday, and was reunited on the top unit with Logan Stankoven and Englot.
Toporowski, who turned 21 in April, was an addition at the Jan. 17 trade deadline in a deal with the Spokane Chiefs but missed the final 12 regular season games with the Blazers with a lower body injury. He had five goals and 10 points in the Blazers' fourgame sweep of the Chiefs in the first round.
Vancouver defenceman Mazden Leslie, who seemed to hurt his ankle earlier in the same shift as Toporowski's injury by getting twisted up trying to make a play to the side of the Vancouver net — Giants athletic trainer Mike Burnstein and his Blazers counterpart Colin Robinson were out on the ice attending to players at the same time — missed his second straight game with Vancouver.
Winger Colton Langkow, who also left Game 1 in the first period, was out again as well with an undisclosed injury. He had missed Game 2 in the Everett series as well.
Leslie, who turned 17 in April, has seen top-four minutes for much of the year. Langkow, 18, had flourished in the playoffs and had been seeing top-six minutes in the Everett series
Forwards Sammy May and Justin Ivanusec were both in the Vancouver lineup for a second straight game.