Series continues Saturday in Everett before moving to the Langley Events Center for Game 3 on Wednesday
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Vancouver Giants defenseman Connor Horning talked earlier this week about the playoffs being a chance for a reset for his team after they didn’t live up to their own expectations in the regular season.
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He has added ammunition for that take now.
Adam Hall scored three goals, including the winner at 9:47 of the first overtime period, and linemate Fabian Lysell recorded five assists to lead the eighth-placed Giants to a 5-4 win over the first-place Everett Silvertips Friday at the Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett in Game 1 of their best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal.
Game 2 is Saturday in Everett. The series moves to the Langley Events Center on Wednesday.
Vancouver was built this season for a run at the top half of the standings, with a lineup that featured 10 players in their 19-year-old season. They instead grabbed the final playoff spot in the West on the final night of the WHL season last Saturday, their 24-39-5-0 record leaving them 47 points behind the 43-15-5-5 Silvertips.
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Vancouver defenseman Alex Cotton tied the game at 4-4 at 18:40 mark of the third, waiting for a free lane before firing one home with Vancouver utilizing six attackers.
Here’s what we learned.
Welcome back Vikman
Jesper Vikman, who had not tended goal for Vancouver since leaving a March 4 game in the first period due to a lower body injury, returned to the Giants net and made 34 saves. Everett controlled the overtime early on, but Vancouver wound up outshooting them 10-5 in the extra period, in part to a power play just before the Hall winner.
Vikman is one of four NHL draft picks with the Giants, a 2020 fifth-round selection of the Vegas Golden Knights. He’s joined in that regard by Lysell (2021 Boston Bruins first rounder), Cotton (2020 Detroit Red Wings fifth rounder) and first-line center Zack Ostapchuk (2021 Ottawa Senators first rounder). The Giants had a fifth in forward Justin Sourdif (2020 Florida Panthers third rounder), but they dealt him to the Edmonton Oil Kings at the Jan. 17 trade deadline.
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Vikman, a Swede who turned 20 in March, was 17-15-2-0, with a 3.05 goals against average and a .903 save percentage. General manager Barclay Parneta said prior to his injury that he was the Giants’ team most valuable player. Ostapchuk, who sparkled down the stretch, took that award at the close of the regular season.
Vancouver went 4-13-3-0 after Vikman got hurt to finish the regular season. They lost 11 of their final 12 (1-10-1-0) and wound up in a three-way tie for the sixth spot with the Spokane Chiefs and Prince George Cougars. The Victoria Royals were one point back, missing the playoffs with their ninth-place standing.
Busy, busy boys
Vancouver coach Michael Dyck dressed 11 forwards and seven defencemen, rather than the standard 12-6 complement. He relied heavily on Ostapchuk, Lysell and Hall, double shifting them throughout the contest. The WHL doesn’t publish ice-time stats, but it’s easy to guess that they played well over 25 minutes apiece. Lysell and Hall both finished with seven shots.
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It’ll be interesting to see if Dyck can find ways to cut back on their ice time as this series continues and if Everett tries to play them physically to try to wear them out.
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Perfect time for a first
Vancouver rookie winger Colton Langkow, who didn’t score a goal in 52 regular season games, is now 1-for-1 when it comes to playoffs after he neatly redirected a Cotton shot that was likely going wide past Everett goalie Koen MacInnes in the second to make 3-2 in Everett’s favour.
MacInnes finished with 35 saves. Forwards Ryan Hofer, Jacob Wright and Niko Huuhtanen all had one goal and one assist for the Silvertips.
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No action for Jackson
Defenseman Olen Zellweger and winger Jackson Berezowski, who shared the Silvertips team most valuable player honors this season, both were injury question marks going into Friday after missing games down the stretch for Everett.
Zellweger (upper body injury) played against the Giants in Game 1, but Berezowski (undisclosed) did not.
Berezowski, a Yorkton, Sask., native who turned 20 in February, had 46 goals and 79 points for the Silvertips this season. He had five goals in the four regular season games against the Giants. The teams went 2-2-0-0 against each other.
Berezowski left Everett’s April 15 game against the Portland Winterhawks and then sat out their April 16 regular season finale versus the Tri-City Americans.
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Zellweger, 18, missed both of those games after leaving Everett’s April 10 matchup with the Seattle Thunderbirds on a stretcher following a heavy check.
Zellweger, who was a member of the Canadian world junior team, was the WHL’s top scoring defenseman, with 78 points, including 14 goals, in 55 games.
He got sandwiched against the boards by Langkow and fellow Vancouver forward Kyle Bocheck early on in the second period. That led to Langkow fighting Everett’s Hunter Campbell and Bocheck scrapping Michal Gut of the Silvertips.
Gut and Bocheck were both tossed from the game. Zellweger didn’t miss any time.
long time coming
With the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out the past two playoffs, Friday marked the Giants’ first postseason game since they lost Game 7 of the WHL championship series 3-2 in overtime to the host Prince Albert Raiders on May 13, 2019.
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There wasn’t a single player in Vancouver’s lineup Friday who played in that game. Sourdif started the year with Vancouver and fellow forwards Evan Patrician (Victoria) and Lukas Svejkovsky (Seattle Thunderbirds) did play in the league this year, though.
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NEXT GAME
Game 2
Vancouver leads best-of-seven series 1-0
saturday
Vancouver Giants vs. Everett Silvertips
6:05 pm, Angel of the Winds Arena. Radio: Sportsnet 650.
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