The Vancouver Giants are heading to Vancouver Island up 2-0 in their second-round series with the Victoria Royals. Saturday night in front of 4586 at the LEC the Vancouver Giants earned a 2-1 overtime victory over the Royals. Tristen Nielsen ended the game at 3:29 of overtime giving the Giants their fourth straight victory in the 2019 WHL Playoffs. Lukas Svejkovsky scored the other Giants goal at 5:51 of the second period on a power play. Ralph Jarratt responded with Victoria’s goal at 10:12 of the third, also via the power play. David Tendeck earned his third victory of the playoffs between the pipes for the Giants stopping nine of the 10 shots he faced while Griffen Outhouse stopped 37 of Vancouver’s 39 shot attempts.
1st Period:
No Scoring
Shots: 9-2 Vancouver
2nd Period:
VAN – Lukas Svejkovsky’s second goal of the WHL playoffs ended up the WHL Highlight of the Night. With Victoria killing off a five-minute major penalty assessed to Jake Kustra, Svejkovsky took a pass in the right-wing circle, raced around the Royals net and snuck a low shot past Griffen Outhouse to give the Giants a 1-0 lead.Tristen Nielsen and Alex Kannok Leipert drew assists.
Shots: 15-3 Vancouver
3rd Period:
VIC – Ralph Jarratt (2) ended the Giants shutout streak at 10:12 of the final period when his shot from the left-wing point deflected off three different Giants and past David Tendeck. Jarratt’s power play goal was assisted by Igor Martynov.
Shots: 12-5 Vancouver
Overtime:
VAN – 3:29 into overtime the Vancouver Giants secured the victory when Davis Koch spun off a check in the left-wing corner, centered a pass into the slot for Tristen Nielsen (3) who one-timed the feed up and over the glove of Griffen Outhouse and in. Seth Bafaro drew the second assist. After the goal was scored, Royals goaltender Griffen Outhouse jumped on top of Nielsen creating a post-game melee that took a few moments to break up
Final Score: Vancouver 2 – Victoria 1 (Overtime)
Final Shots: 39-10 Vancouver
David Tendeck: 9/10 saves for Vancouver (3-1)
Griffen Outhouse: 37/39 saves for Victoria (4-2-2)
Vancouver: 1/3 on the Power Play
Victoria:1/2 on the Power Play
Next Game: The series now shifts to Victoria for Game 3 of the series Tuesday night at 7:05 PM from the Save on Foods Memorial Centre.
NOTES:
- Saturday night’s overtime victory was the first playoff overtime victory for the Vancouver Giants since March 23, 2010. That night Brett Breitkreuz scored 2:28 into overtime in Kamloops giving the Giants a 5-4 win and a 3-0 series lead over the Blazers.
- The Vancouver Giants kept the Victoria Royals to just 10 shots against through three periods plus overtime. The Giants have now surrendered just 25 shots against through two games so far in Round 2.
- Tristen Nielsen’s status for Game 2 was questionable up until pre-game warmup. He left Game 1 in the second period and did not return to the game after sustaining an upper-body injury. He has three goals and five assists for eight points through eight games in the playoffs.
- Royals defenceman Jake Kustra was assessed a five-minute major penalty for cross-checking at 2:54 of the second period. All major penalties are automatically reviewed by the WHL head office.
- The Giants have now recorded at least one power play goal in seven of the eight playoff games they’ve played so far.