Could the Vancouver Giants be a seller at Monday’s WHL trade deadline?

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You could understand if December 8 feels like a lifetime ago for Vancouver Giants fans.

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The Giants entered the Canadian Hockey League national standings that morning, following wins on back-to-back nights over the highly respected Kamloops Blazers and Everett Silvertips. It ended as a short-lived laurel, as Vancouver lost 7-1 in Kamloops that night and now find themselves in a 2-10-1-0 rut heading into the Western Hockey League trade deadline at 2 pm on Monday.

Club talk all season has been about making an extended postseason run, but Vancouver (15-17-2-0) is just above the playoff bar, sitting in seventh place in the Western Conference. They are tied on points with the Cougars (15-17-1-1), but Prince George has the head-to-head series lead after nine games of their 12-game season series.

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The Victoria Royals (12-16-4-0) are in the eighth and last place in the playoffs, four points behind Vancouver and Prince George with two games remaining for both. The ninth-place Tri-City Americans were 11-17-4-0 in a Sunday matchup with the Silvertips, leaving them six points behind the Giants and Cougars with two games in hand.

Vancouver hasn’t been a seller at the trade deadline since 2016-17, when then-general manager Glen Hanlon traded veterans Dmitry Osipov, Radovan Bondra, Alec Baer and Thomas Foster. That Giants team became the fourth in five seasons to miss the playoffs.

Vancouver hasn’t handed out a fan-favorite guy since taking out James Henry in 2011-12 and Craig Cunningham in 2010-11.

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“We were finding ways to win in early December. Now we’re finding ways to lose,” Giants coach Michael Dyck said after Vancouver’s most recent loss, a 4-2 setback to the Cougars on Saturday night at Langley Events Center.

Dyck said he didn’t discuss the trade deadline with his team after the game.

“Turn in your work. We’ll be back on Monday,” Dyck said as his last message to the group on Saturday night.

General manager Barclay Parneta was not in the LEC this weekend. He spent much of last week at an Under-15 tournament in St. Albert, Alta., scouting players for this spring’s WHL Draft. Several WHL GMs were present.

Parneta says he has had conversations with various teams. He has been unwilling to go into details. He has said that this business deadline has been more difficult than typical ones due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Vancouver was closed from team activities for five days due to multiple positive cases. They had to postpone three games. Friday’s 3-2 overtime loss to Prince George in the LEC was their first match since Jan. 2.

Parneta did not say how many players and staff have tested positive for COVID-19, but admitted it was the “majority” of his 30-person operation.

They’ve had a lot of company in that regard. As of January 7, the WHL website has listed 19 of its 22 teams as being on a COVID-19-related hiatus at some point.

While ensuring player health has been a focus for GMs, Parneta admits there are teams that are wary of more shutdowns when it comes to trades. The two biggest trades since the holidays as of Sunday morning: the Seattle Thunderbirds who got former Giants forward Lukas Svejkovsky from the Medicine Hat Tigers and the Portland Winterhawks who got goaltender Taylor Gauthier from Prince George , have had two conditional draft picks each. Neither party involved will say what the terms are, but it’s easy to guess.

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The Kelowna Rockets were scheduled to host the 2020 Memorial Cup national tournament and traded their first-round WHL Draft picks in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023 in separate deals in a bid to bolster their lineup. Instead, that season closed in March 2020.

Vancouver is a senior team by junior hockey standards, with nine 19-year-old players. The Cougars have one, the Royals have five.

Dyck left the Giants to take up his assistant coaching duties with the Canadian World Junior Team right after the wins over Kamloops and Everett. Center Justin Sourdif joined him for Team Canada a game later and winger Fabian Lysell and goalkeeper Jesper Vikman departed two games later to join Team Sweden.

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Dyck, Sourdif and Vikman returned to the Giants three games ago. Lysell returned to Sweden after the junior worlds closed to spend time with family. The Boston Bruins prospect is scheduled to return to the Giants early this week. They expect him to be in the lineup on Friday, when they return to action with a visit to Victoria.

“Fabian brings a dynamic element when it comes to offense,” Dyck said.

Special teams have played a part in this Vancouver recession. His power play went 2-for-4 on Saturday. He had been running 11.1 percent (4 of 36) in the previous 12 games, and started Sunday ranked 12th in the league (20.7 percent, 24 of 116).

The penalty shootout, meanwhile, began Sunday tied for last in the league, shooting just 73.5 percent (36 goals against, 136 chances). He has been at 57.1 percent (21 goals against in 49 opportunities) in the last 13 games.

“A lot of it has to do with trust,” Dyck said of the death penalty.

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Twitter: @SteveEwen

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