A sleepy second period was overcome by a very strong third for the Vancouver Giants on Monday afternoon, as they defeated the Spokane Chiefs 6-3 at the Langley Events Centre, playing in their fourth game in six days.
Vancouver’s win stretches their home winning streak to eight games, while also improving the club’s record to 14-4-1 since New Year’s Day.
Head coach Manny Viveiros said “it was good to get back home.”
“I thought we looked a little bit tired tonight,” Viveiros said.
“You could see it in our legs. We didn’t have that normal jump that we’ve had before. We’ve been on the road quite a bit: we were in Victoria, back against Portland and then back to Portland, again the travel. We were a little bit sluggish, but I thought we got our game back in the third period and got back to how we play as a team, the structure.”
He praised goaltender Brett Mirwald for making “some big saves at the right time.”
“It could have went either way. Spokane played really well this afternoon too. Just happy we were able to come away with two points.”
Mirwald said the regrouped in the final frame “and the guys got a couple goals late in the third and we locked it down. It’s puck management, getting it deep, but still creating offence because we’re scoring goals here in third periods, but we’re not giving up a bunch of late turnovers on blue lines, which is huge.”
Giants were tied 2-2 after 40 minutes but pulled away in the third. In total, they got goals from six different players on Monday: Cameron Schmidt, London Hoilett, Connor Levis, Logen Hammett, Tyson Zimmer, and Jaden Lipinski.
Mirwald stopped 37 of 40 for his 24th win of the season. He is now 13-2-1 in his last 15 games.
The Giants’ penalty kill on Monday was also superb, going 4-for-4. The PK is now 90.7 per cent in the last nine games (39-for-43).
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Next, Giants travel to Kelowna on Friday for a road contest with the Rockets at 7:05 p.m. Saturday, they’ll host Kamloops for RE/MAX presents: Nickelodeon Night, where Vancouver will sport unique SpongeBob SquarePants jerseys. Puck drops at 7 p.m.
