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Vancouver Giants

Giants Crush Cougars 6-1

November 16, 2023 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Vancouver Giants News Release


Vancouver Giants celebrate win
Vancouver Giants celebrate win
(Vancouver Giants, Credit: James Doyle)

Prince George, B.C. - The Vancouver Giants got three goals from Jaden Lipinski and 38 saves from Brett Mirwald in a 6-1 victory over the Prince George Cougars on Wednesday night at the CN Centre.

The Giants' record improves to 8-11-1 this season.

Scoring for Vancouver was Lipinski (5th, 6th, 7th), Ty Halaburda (6th), Jakob Oreskovic (2nd) and Adam Titlbach (4th). Other noteworthy storylines from Wednesday was a penalty kill that went 9-for-9 and a pair of assists from Mazden Leslie.

The Cougars entered action on Wednesday second in the CHL top-10 rankings. Their record now falls to 14-6-0-0.

GAME SUMMARY:

The Giants opened the scoring on a power play at the 4:12 mark of the first period, after Halaburda found Lipinski in between coverage near the right circle, who beat Young on the blocker side.

Eight and a half minutes later, Halaburda broke up a power play entry at centre ice and flew the other way, snapping home his sixth of the season on a shorthanded breakaway to double Vancouver's lead.

Before the period was done, Lipinski buried his second of the period off a feed from Schmidt on an odd-man rush.

Ondrej Becher got the Cougars on the board just over five minutes into the second, but the Giants responded less than two minutes later, after Cull found Oreskovic open in the right circle. The 16-year-old had time to pick his spot, and made no mistake, sniping a wrist shot off the far side post and in to make it 4-1 for Vancouver.

Before the second period came to a close, Lipinski completed the hat-trick off an odd-man rush after getting a pass from Leslie and finishing on the backhand.

After 40 minutes, the Giants had a 5-1 lead, much in part thanks to Brett Mirwald's 29 saves.

The third period was dominated by the Giants' impressive penalty kill, which successfully killed off two consecutive 5-on-3's.

Late in the game, Titlbach got on the board for the first time in 11 games, after a beautiful redirect in front of the net off a pass from Leslie, making the final score 6-1.

THEY SAID IT

"The first period set the tone tonight. And like we talked about last night, we did have a good first last night, but tonight we got rewarded. I thought our best players were our best players tonight, which is great, and an outstanding performance from Mirwald in net...There were a lot of [big] moments in the game. We kill two 5-on-3s for a minute plus. There were just a lot of little things that added up tonight, but there was a lot of penalties. So special teams played a massive part in tonight's game: power play was good, PK was good." - Associate Coach Adam Maglio on the game overall

"He's been playing the right way for a long, long time and the production has started to come and it really came out tonight for him. [Lipinski] does a lot of little things so the scoresheet stuff is great, and he deserves it, but he does a lot of little things. He's on the number one kill unit, he's number one PP, he takes all our important face-offs, so he really led by example." - Associate Coach Adam Maglio on Jaden Lipinski's hat-trick performance

"With Mirzy, he always bounces back well from a loss. Not by any means, he wasn't bad last night, but certainly you can get down as a goalie after a loss. I thought again tonight, he's just calm, cool, collected. His demeanour really sets the tone for the group. Same as Jaden, he led by example tonight and his play was outstanding." - Associate Coach Adam Maglio on Brett Mirwald's 38-save performance

STATISTICS

SOG: VAN - 13/9/8 = 30 | PG - 14/16/9 = 39

PP: VAN - 2/8 | PG - 0/9

Face-Offs: VAN - 32 | PG - 38

3 STARS

1st: VAN - Jaden Lipinski- 3G, 3 SOG, +2

2nd: VAN - Brett Mirwald - 38 Saves on 39 Shots

3rd: VAN - Ty Halaburda - 1G, 1A, 5 SOG, +2

GOALTENDING BATTLE

Vancouver: Win - Brett Mirwald (38 saves / 39 shots)

Prince George: Loss - Ty Young (24 saves / 30 shots)

NEXT GAME:

Vancouver will host the Cougars on Friday, before playing Lethbridge at the LEC on Saturday for the annual White Spot Legends Weekend.

Check out the Vancouver Giants Statistics




Images from this story

Vancouver Giants celebrate win
Vancouver Giants celebrate win
(James Doyle)		   

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