Blazers 4, Giants 3: Top line tinkering fails to curb Kamloops

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The Vancouver Giants showed that they’re a better team than they displayed in the regular season. They didn’t show enough to beat the Kamloops Blazers, though.

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The No. 2 seeded Blazers beat the No. 8 Giants 4-3 on Saturday before a crowd of 4,192 at the Sandman Center to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven WHL Western Conference semifinals. Game 3 is Tuesday at the Langley Events Centre.

Kamloops won the opener 3-1 on Friday at the Sandman Center.

Vancouver has played well. The Blazers have played better.

Vancouver (24-39-5-0) finished 46 points behind the Blazers (48-17-3-0) in the regular season. Kamloops was 10-1-1-0 against Vancouver in league play.

The Giants beat the No. 1 Everett Silvertips (45-13-5-5) in six games in the quarterfinals, becoming the first No. 8 to beat a No. 1 in the first round since the WHL went to a 16-team playoff split into two conferences in 2002.

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Vancouver started the third period Saturday with two-man power play for 1:47 and the score 4-3 in Kamloops favour. That evaporated quickly, because Ty Thorpe was assessed a checking to the head minor at 1:03 of the third period.

The GIants pulled the goalie in favor of an extra attacker with 2:56 remaining. Thorpe took a slashing penalty with 1:41 to go during a skirmish in front of the net.

Alex Cotton and Evan Toth gave Vancouver a 2-1 lead going into the second. That was the first time that the Blazers have trailed in these playoffs after sweeping the No. 7 Spokane Chiefs in the first round. Kamloops scored three times to go up 4-2 and then Vancouver made it 4-3 when Ethan Semeniuk deposited Jaden Lipinski’s rebound past Kamloops goaltender Dylan Garand.

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Drew Englot, Connor Levis, Caedan Bankier and Daylan Kuefler carved for Kamloops. Garand made 23 saves for Kamloops. Jesper Vikman turned away 35 for Vancouver.

That’s part of the story. Here’s what else we learned.

Power play not enough

The Giants power play clicked at 37.5 per cent (12-of-32) against Everett after being a modest 17.7 per cent (43-of-243) in the regular season. That was good enough for 18th in the WHL, the lowest for playoff-bound team.

Vancouver’s power play was 0-of-5 on Saturday after going 0-for-3 on Friday. The Blazers penalty kill, by the way, has been good on 30-of-31 attempts in these playoffs. That’s a 96.8 per cent success rate. They were at 80.9 per cent (41 goals against, 215 opportunities) during the regular season. That was sixth best in the league.

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Stankoven causes ruckus

Blazer star forward Logan Stankoven chased after a loose puck and found himself on a breakaway just as the second period horn was about to sound. Stankoven ended up a stride or two short when time expired, but still went in and beat Vikman to the backhand, which infuriated the Giants and led to couple of different donnybrooks.

Stankoven wounded up with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Injury woes

Kamloops winger Luke Toporowski and Vancouver defender Mazden Leslie both left the Game 1 after being hurt on the same sequence late in the first period and both sat out Game 2.

Toporowski, an overage who the Blazers picked up at the Jan. 17 trade deadline from the Spokane Chiefs, seemed to suffer a shoulder injury when he crashed into the end boards after getting thwarted by Vancouver netminder Jesper Vikman.

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Toporowski, who’s been playing on Kamloops’ top line with Stankoven and Drew Englot, missed the final 12 games of the regular season with a lower body injury but played all four games of the Blazers’ first-round sweep against his old Spokane mates.

Emmitt Finnie, 16, took Toporowski’s spot in the lineup. It was his first playoff action for him. I have played 48 regular season games.

Leslie seemed to hurt his ankle on a play around the Vancouver net just before Toporowski’s chance. Leslie, a Giants rookie who turned 17 three weeks ago, had seemed to hurt an ankle as well in the later stages of Game 6 against Everett.

Vancouver also lost winger Colton Langkow, 18, to an undisclosed injury in the first period. Langkow had missed Game 2 of the Everett series.

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Vancouver dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen on Friday. They went with the more traditional 12-and-six format, bringing in forward Sammy May, 19, and underage Justin Ivanusec to replace Leslie and Langkow.

Nicco Camazzola was the Vancouver defenseman who saw a spike in ice time, usually paired with Connor Horning.

May played one game with Vancouver in the regular season, suiting up against the Victoria Royals for an Oct. 2 contest. I have spent the majority of the season playing Junior A with both the Langley Rivermen and Drayton Valley Thunder.

Ivanusec was Vancouver’s fourth-round pick in December’s 2021 WHL Draft. I have got into five regular season games with the Giants. Saturday was his second playoff game for him.

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Giants general manager Barclay Parneta has said that center Ty Halaburda (upper body injury) and winger Kaden Kohle (upper body injury) won’t return this season. Halaburda played 45 regular season games, Kohle played 63.

Parneta has said that Halaburda had shoulder surgery.

Wingers Payton Mount (upper body injury), Cole Shepard (lower body injury) and Jacob Boucher (lower body injury) are sidelined as well.

Mount was sixth in Giants scoring in the regular season with 32 points, including 12 goals, in 59 games. He left Game 2 against Everett after taking a check from Everett center Alex Swetlikoff, and hasn’t played since.

Giants coach Michael Dyck has talked about concussion concerns for Mount.

Swetlikoff received a checking to the head double minor and then a two-game suspension from the league office.

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top line tinkering

Dyck broke up his No. 1 line for the first shift of the game, going with Justin Lies in Fabian Lysell’s usual spot with Zack Ostapchuk and Adam Hall. Dyck went with Lies in Lysell’s regular spot and Lysell with Lies’ usual linemates Ty Thorpe and Kyle Bochek a couple of other times in the first period, too, in an bid to spread out Vancouver’s scoring, but he largely kept his top trio together for the majority of the game.

Blazers coach Shaun Clouston was back using overage Quinn Schmiemann and 19-year-old Ethan Brandwood against the Ostapchuk line usually.

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NEXT GAME

Tuesday: Game 3

Kamloops leads best-of-seven series 2-0 or Best-of-seven series tied 1-1

Kamloops Blazers vs. Vancouver Giants

7 pm, Langley Events Centre. Radio: Sportsnet 650.