Vancouver Giants cough up lead, lose to Prince George Cougars in OT in first game back from COVID-19 shutdown

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The Vancouver Giants played their first game in 12 days on Friday night. Considering how it ended, coach Michael Dyck is looking forward to playing again tonight.

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“It’s really important that we get back to it,” Dyck said of tonight’s game against the Prince George Cougars at Langley Events Center (7 pm, Sportsnet 650) on the heels of Friday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Cougars in the LEC on Friday.

In their first game since Jan. 2 due to a COVID-19 hiatus, Vancouver coughed up a 2-0 lead against a similarly rusty Prince George team, playing their first game since Jan. 1 due to their own pandemic-related closure. . Ethan Samson scored the game-winner on a rebound at 1:58 of extra time.

“I’m disappointed. I’m really disappointed that we’re not sticking with what we know, and what worked very, very well for us in the first half,” Dyck said. “We have to be a lot tougher mentally.

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“It was a very good start for us. If we had played that way for 60 minutes it probably would have been a different result, but in the second half of the game we beat ourselves up. We went back to what we had seen before: flip the pucks, not be physical, play slow. When we do that, we’re not going to be successful.”

Vancouver (15-16-2-0) came into the season with big aspirations, but with the WHL’s trade deadline Monday at 2 p.m., they sit sixth in the Western Conference, just two points above the Cougars (14-17-1-0). The Giants were built to compete this season, with nine players on their roster in their 19-year-old seasons. Prince George has only one player in 19-year-old defenseman Aiden Reeves, and he has been sidelined for a month with a lower-body injury.

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Friday’s game, broadcast nationally on TSN as part of the station’s monthly all-sports weekly coverage of youth matchups from across the country, featured a high-paced first period, a surprise considering both teams were out gaming for so long.

Winger Justin Lies, with his fifth goal of the season, and center Justin Sourdif, with his ninth, scored for Vancouver. Jesper Vikman made 35 saves in the Vancouver net.

Tyler Brennan stopped 37 for Prince George. Samson, a defender, scored two goals, giving him eight for the campaign. Forward Koehn Ziemmer added his 11th for Prince George.

Giants bosses say they expect winger Fabian Lysell, a 2021 Boston Bruins first-round pick, to return to the lineup next week. He went home to Sweden after the world juniors.

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