This Week in Giants Hockey

October 20, 2008
Dave Sheldon - Vancouver Giants

Vancouver BC – The Vancouver Giants wrapped up their first extensive home stand of the season this week with a mid week finale against the Everett Silvertips this past Wednesday night. The Giants were able to control the game pretty much the whole way though as they built up a 3-1 lead with just over three minutes to play. But the Silvertips refused to be vanquished, scoring two goals in just under two minutes to tie things up at three.

Overtime would settle nothing, but the shootout would as both Giants Goaltender Tyson Sexsmith and Tips keeper Shayne Barrie were spectacular. Matt Ius was finally able to solve Sexsmith in Round nine of the Shootout to give the Silvertips a 4-3 shootout victory. With the shootout defeat, the Giants record is now a still impressive 7-0-0-3 on the season. The G-Men finish their five game stretch at the Pacific Coliseum with a 3-0-0-2 record and will now embark on their first trip to the Central Division this season. The Giants will play games versus the Edmonton Oil Kings, (Wednesday), Red Deer Rebels, (Friday) and Lethbridge Hurricanes on Saturday.

Notes:
• The Giants are now the only team left in the WHL without a regulation loss. With fifty-four goals so far this season, the Giants lead the league in goals scored…by two over the Calgary Hitmen, and the Hitmen have played three more games. Vancouver is also tied for the fewest goals allowed with just twenty one against
through ten games. The Spokane Chiefs are at twenty one goals against through their first twelve games.

• Evander Kane and Casey Pierro-Zabotel sit 1-2 atop the WHL leading scorers list. Kane (9G-13A) and Pierro-Zabotel (3G-17A) have recorded a point in every game so far this season, (The Giants have played ten games). Kane is first in overall scoring, second in goals scored and second in assists while Pierro-Zabotel is first in assists.

• Defenseman Craig Schira continues his impressive start to the season. The Spiritwood, SK resident has already scored five times this season, just three away from his career high of eight goals last season. At his current pace, Schira would have no problem doubling his career total of seventeen goals. Schira’s 10 points have him in 6th place in WHL defenseman scoring, but all players ahead of him have played at least two more games.

• Captain Jonathon Blum is off to a fast start...the pride of Rancho Santa Margarita, CA has played in six games since his return from the NHL’s Nashville Predators pre-season camp and has scored eight points (3G-5A). Blum had 63 points last season (18G-45A) and could reach those numbers again, even though he may miss a month or so of game action if the expected occurs and Blum is called up to represent Team USA at the World Juniors. Blum is currently in the team lead in plus/minus...Blum is at +12.

• The PEZ line it is! Mike Piluso (P), Evander Kane (E) and Casey Pierro-Zabotel (Z), and have been dynamite in the early going, dispensing 52 points in just ten games. Seventeen of the Giants twenty-two skaters have notched at least four points this season, and all seventeen of the players have scored a goal as well. Of the five skaters currently held without a point, one (Kulchar) has yet to play a game due to injury, while two others (Kennedy and Maschmeyer) have been slowed by injuries. JT Barnett and Simon Witt have also been platooned in and out of the line-up and have seen limited game action thus far.

• The Vancouver Giants power play has been on fire! Twenty of the Giants fifty-four goals have been with the man advantage. The Giants are currently operating at an incredible 33..3%, (20 goals on 60 opportunities). If the Giants were to maintain this torrid pace on the power play, they would end up scoring 144 goals with the extra man! The record is 180 by the 88-89 Swift Current Broncos...back when teams were scoring 400+ goals. Last season, the Giants led the league with 85 Power Play goals. In the past fifteen seasons, the 02-03 Kelowna Rockets have scored the most goals, as they had 117 that season.

• The Vancouver Giants are currently ranked #6 in the CHL rankings. The Giants .850 winning percentage is best in the WHL. The Giants average of 5.4 goals scored per game is the best in the CHL. Three teams in the QMHJL have scored more goals than Vancouver, but have played at least four more games than the Giants.

What the score sheet isn’t telling you…

The Giants are 7-0-0-3 to start the season, over the past five seasons, the Giants are 36-6-3-5 in their first ten games of the season. In Games 11-20, the Giants have been 24-10-1-2 over the past four seasons, with this season’s totals still pending. Seven of those ten losses occurred in 2004-05, Don Hay’s first season behind the bench.

Don Hay has officially won 395 games in the WHL and is five games away from 400 wins in his WHL career. Hay has coached 661 WHL regular season games and has a career winning percentage of .641, which is 6th best all time and currently is the highest active winning percentage. Hay has posted 81 WHL playoff coaching victories and has a career winning percentage of .648 in the playoffs.

Next up, the Giants will hit the road for three games in four days, beginning Wednesday in Edmonton versus the Oil Kings. Friday night the Giants will tangle with the Red Deer Rebels, followed by a battle with the WHL Eastern Conference Champions, the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Saturday night. The Giants will be spending a few days at the Circle Square Ranch in Halkirk, AB, before settling in Edmonton on Tuesday mid-day.

You can catch all the action of Giants hockey on SUPERHITS 650 CISL. Dave Sheldon will have the call of all three road games and analyst Bill Wilms will join Dave in Red Deer and Lethbridge. A reminder that the games in Alberta will begin an hour earlier than usual; Edmonton-Vancouver and Lethbridge-Vancouver will be 6 p.m. PDT start times while the Red Deer-Vancouver game will be a 6:30 PDT start...all games will have the White Spot pre-game show begin thirty minutes prior.