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WHL Vancouver Giants

Giants Double up Ams 6-3 on Home Ice

January 18, 2025 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Vancouver Giants News Release


Vancouver Giants on game night
Vancouver Giants on game night
(Vancouver Giants, Credit: Rob Wilton)

Langley, B.C. - The Vancouver Giants made the most of their opportunities on Friday night at the Langley Events Centre, scoring twice in each period en route to a 6-3 win over the Tri-City Americans.

The win improves Vancouver's record this season to 21-16-5, while the Ams fall to 21-15-3-1. Vancouver has hopped Tri-City for sixth place in the Western Conference. The G-Men are 8-3-1 in their last 12 games.

The Giants surrendered the first goal, but quickly came back with two of their own. They extended their lead from 2-1 to 4-1 in the second period, before putting the game out of reach with two more goals in the final stanza.

Cameron Schmidt led the way offensively for Vancouver with two goals - his 30th and 31st tallies of the season - with four other teammates finding the back of the net: Maxim Muranov (12th), Mazden Leslie (10th), Brett Olson (4th) and Ty Halaburda (16th).

Giants defenceman Ryan Lin had three assists, giving him the Giants franchise record for points by a 16-year-old defenceman at 33 (3G-30A). Goaltender Burke Hood improved to 9-6-4 on the season with a 36-save performance.

Tri-City got a pair of goals from Carter MacAdams and a first period goal from Max Curran.

GAME SUMMARY

Curran scored for Tri-City just over a minute in when he threw a puck on net from the bottom of the circle.

Muranov scored on a breakaway several minutes later after Jakob Oreskovic blocked a shot and sprung him behind the defence, giving Muranov four goals in his first four games in a Giants uniform.

Schmidt tapped in a fabulous feed from Jaden Lipinski 1:19 later to make it 2-1 for Vancouver on his 30th goal of the season in just his 36th game. He is the fourth WHLer this season to hit 30 goals, after Shea Van Olm and Andrew Cristall in Spokane and Kyle Chyzowski in Portland.

Leslie scored on a power play 1:07 into period two to give the G-Men a two-goal advantage.

At the 7:44 mark of the second, Lin moved in from the right point and found Olson in the slot, who snapped one home to make it 4-1.

MacAdams scored with under five minutes left to cut the Giants lead to 4-2.

The two-goal lead heading into period three didn't last long, as Halaburda scored off a 2-on-1 rush with Schmidt to make it 5-2 just 11 seconds into the final frame.

Schmidt would later add his second of the night to make it 6-2.

MacAdams added a late goal to make it 6-3.

THEY SAID IT

"There were a lot of good things tonight. There's no question about it. Parts of the game I really thought [were] really excellent. How we looked and how we're playing, we're connected, and then we get up 4-1, and then we took our foot off the gas pedal, and they came back and it's gonna happen. You're gonna have ebbs and flows, and you're gonna have momentum swings and stuff like that, and getting back to what you said before, Burke [Hood] was there to kill the momentum. So that was really good." - Giants Head Coach Manny Viveiros on the game overall

"With our group here, we want to get ourselves to eventually being one of the top teams [in the league]. We're always trying to get better and better. I'm very happy with the result and for the most part how we played the game, but when we look back on it - and the players know too - we got loose in some areas. Good teams, especially after Christmas, good teams in the Western Hockey League that go on and have a chance to win a championship have to be able to do that and that's something that we're still learning and in the process of doing that, as far as, in a 4-1 hockey game, we don't need to open up. Especially up until then, we were doing the right things and we were creating so many offensive chances because we were playing the game the correct way and then once we got up to 4-1, we kind of just relaxed a little bit and you can't do that in this league. We've done it to teams and teams have done it to us." - Giants Head Coach Manny Viveiros

"We were just doing the little things and making chances when they came and we were able to finish on our opportunities tonight...A year older and [with] more experience, I'm just able to find those open areas and my teammates have been doing a great job of finding me in the open ice and I'm able to put it in the net." - Giants Forward Cameron Schmidt

STATISTICS

SOG: VAN - 5/9/10 = 24 | TC - 11/12/16 = 39

PP: VAN- 1/5 | TC - 0/6

Face-Offs: VAN - 33 | TC - 20

3 STARS

1st: VAN - Ryan Lin - 3A, +2

2nd: VAN - Burke Hood - 36 Saves on 39 Shots

3rd: VAN - Cameron Schmidt- 2G, 1A, 3 SOG, +3

GOALTENDING BATTLE

Vancouver: WIN - Burke Hood (36 saves / 39 shots)

Tri-City: LOSS - Nathan Preston (8 saves / 12 shots). Lukas Matecha in relief (10 saves / 12 shots)

THIS AND THAT

With his 46th career goal, captain Mazden Leslie is now three goals away from tying Jonathon Blum for 1st all-time in goals amongst Giants defencemen. Blum had 49 in 248 games. Leslie also has 16 points in his last 10 games (3G-13A) and has more points (45) than he had all of last season in 27 fewer games

With three assists, 16-year-old defenceman Ryan Lin now has 33 points this season, which is the most ever by a Giants 16-year-old defenceman. Lin surpasses David Musil, whose 32 points in 2009-10 were the previous high

With two goals, draft-eligible forward Cameron Schmidt equalled his goal total from last year (31) in 23 fewer games. He is the first Giant to surpass 50 points this season (51 in 36 GP) and increased his point streak to 6 games (4G-7A). Schmidt is the first Giant to record back-to-back 30-goal seasons since Brendan Gallagher did it three years in a row from 2009-12

Halaburda's three points give him 14 points in his last 10 games (7G-7A)

With two assists, Calgary Flames draft pick Jaden Lipinski increased his point streak to 11 games (4G-14A)

UPCOMING

Date Opponent Time Location

Sunday, January 19 Brandon 2:00 PM PST Langley Events Centre

Tuesday, January 21 Seattle 7:05 PM PST Accesso Showare Center

Saturday, January 25 Kelowna 6:05 PM PST Prospera Place

Check out the Vancouver Giants Statistics




Images from this story

Vancouver Giants on game night
Vancouver Giants on game night
(Rob Wilton)		   

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