Defence never rests for WHL club
There have been nights in this Western Hockey League hub season where the Vancouver Giants have looked every bit a stingy, playoff-type team.
Vancouver pitched its fifth shutout in 10 starts on Sunday night with a 4-0 blanking of the Kamloops Blazers at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops.
The Giants had four shutouts in 62 regular-season games last season and seven in 68 matchups in 2018-19. The club record for a regular season is 14, set in 200607. Vancouver went on to win the Memorial Cup national championship tournament that spring.
“Playing offence starts with good defence,” Giants coach Michael Dyck stated via text message Monday morning. “The harder we check, the quicker we get the puck back.”
Vancouver carried a 7-3-0-0 record into a Monday matchup with the Prince George Cougars at the Sandman.
There won't, however, be any post-season for the Giants and the other B.C. teams playing 24-game schedules out of Kamloops and Kelowna. The league announced Monday that it was calling off its playoffs. The WHL had said it was waiting to hear about whether the Memorial Cup was going to be held this spring. That event was called off last week due to COVID-19.
Regardless, so much of this truncated season was always about building for the future, and Vancouver's having these successful defensive efforts with an eightman rearguard unit that features just one player who won't be eligible to return next season in 20-year-old team captain Alex Kannok Leipert.
There's much work to be done. Vancouver gave up 25 goals in the five of 10 games where it didn't pitch shutouts. That said, Giants fans have reasons to be encouraged next season.
“They're a group on the back end that gets along,” associate coach Keith McCambridge, who runs the defence, told play-by-play man Dan O'Connor during Sunday's post-game show on Sportsnet 650. “They're dialed in with who's up next and what kind of matchup we're trying to get.”
Trent Miner made 27 saves in the Vancouver net for his fourth hub shutout on Sunday. The Colorado Avalanche draft pick will be eligible to return to the Giants for a fifth season next fall as one of their three 20-year-olds.