Bad goals, poor defensive coverage, weak goaltending, simply horrific reffing and a decided lack of drive and impetus to score at all costs. The Giants lost this game poorly; the Americans out-raced them and at times out-worked and out-hit them. The Giants came out for the first ten minutes playing the game they needed to play for the full 60. The stifling reffing killed any and all emotion and energy this game promised to have for the first half of the opening frame. The Giants special teams were poor tonight and it was the major difference in the game. Despite opening the game on a PP and getting their only other goal on the PP, the man-advantage looked bad and the PK even worse. Ten penalties (8 PP chances) were called in the first period between two teams that had a grand total of three called in the entire game 5 in TC. Are you telling me that the games were that different or is it simply that the officiating in this league is all too entirely suspect and inconsistent. TC tied it up on the PP and then added a go-ahead marker on the PP. Neither of the goals was hard won, but rather easy advantage taken of bad goalmouth scrambles. Vancouver got one back in the second tying the game going into the third. TC found the net three times in the third, scoring more easy goals and it was done.

Milan Kytnar opened the scoring on the PP right on the doorstep, a place all too infrequently occupied by the Giants in this series and these playoffs and I am still trying to figure out why. James Henry dug out the puck and got it to Kevin Connauton. Kytnar tipped the shot between the wickets on Drew Owsley. Less than a minute later Johnny Lazo put home a bad rebound on a TC PP. A couple of minutes after that Justin Feser notched another PP marker off of yet another poorly handled puck in the crease. Craig Cunningham scored one getting his own rebound to go. James Henry did an excellent job stripping the puck along the boards with a smart check separating the player from the puck, another tactic under-utilised by the Giants this season and these playoffs. The puck went to Neil Manning for the point shot. The two teams went into the second intermission tied at 2’s.

The third period was all TC, out shooting the G’s 11-6 and easily getting through the seams left in their coverage. The Giants did not play the body and seemed to be caught sitting back instead of really pushing. After their big push in the second I was hoping for the home team to come out guns a-blazing, but instead they allowed themselves to be run out of minutes for the third straight game. Drew Owsley held his team in there in the middle frame when the Giants brought their best pressure. The Americans re-established their lead 26 seconds into the third off of a cheesy play by Patrick Holland and it was all TC from then on. The Giants appeared to have spent their bolt in the second and were being beat to loose pucks and sat four back sending in a lone force-checker to protect a lead they didn’t have for the majority of the final frame. Kruise Reddick put one home on the PP at 3:06 to pad their lead to 2 goals. It was kind of sad to see how badly the Giants were being outplayed and sitting back in the neutral zone, when they really were capable of competing against this team, but just weren’t putting in efficient effective effort. Sergei Drozd potted a wide open tally later in the third, finishing of a tic-tac-toe play that had the whole ice to use as the Giants were nowhere to be found, possibly on a bad change. It was a very poor way to end a promising playoff run and not the best way to leave your fans for your final home game.

The Giants did not bring a physical game, did not challenge the puck carrier and were guilty of soft passing and allowing themselves to be forced to the outside. It was a poor outing for a game 6 and the Americans fully deserved the win and the series as they clearly out-worked, out-netminded and out skated the Vancouver squad. The Giants deficiencies were exposed as their goaltending and D were both broken down too easily when their scoring left them. Up ‘til that point the Giants had been out-scoring their mistakes in most of their wins in these playoffs, but TC clogged up the neutral zone and capitalised with a very speedy mobile game. The Ams had very quick sticks and they gave the Giants fits coming into the offensive zone. The G’s rarely got quality shots on net and seemed content to be forced to the outside instead of creating a lane with their bigger bodies and at least draw a penalty. It was a very frustrating series to watch to say the least.

Shots were 32 apiece in this one and the Americans scored 3 of 7 on the PP, while the Giants went 2 for 9, badly squandering some of their PPs with sloppy passing and no traffic in front of Owsley. All that said though, this season was a odd one with all of those home games played in the fall because of the Olympics, not getting 18 yr old sniper Evander Kane back and only getting 19 yr old James Wright back around the trade deadline after he had played 40 something NHL games. Having a revolving door in net with four goalies vying for the number one spot at various times this season added more question marks. Bonner made a few savvy trades at the deadline to fix a few poor trades and address some of the team’s deficiencies. He failed to acquire a veteran goaltender and at least one top shut down D-man ala Schira or Festerling and in the end these could have made a difference.

The Giants had a good run this season though; surprised a lot of people by winning their fifth straight division title and despite having some challenges this season had yet another good deep run in the playoffs. For what was supposed to be if not a rebuilding year at least a re-tooling year the boys did very well. I am always amazed at how competitive Don Hay’s teams are and despite my own personal opinions about some of the team strategies this season, Hay always manages to get the most out of his group. Hay became the winningest WHL playoff coach, notching his 101st career playoff win this season. The Giants are very fortunate to have him in the fold and the fans should always trust that he’ll put good competitive product on the ice and in the process forge some player’s careers and make them better men as well as better players. Currently I am disappointed, but when I look back in a few weeks I’ll see more good than bad out of this season. Bantam draft is tomorrow and so it begins again. Good luck to OAs Breitkreuz, Toigo and Kytnar in their future endeavours.

Three Stars

1. Drew Owsley
2. Kruise Reddick
3. Mark Segal (what?? – um no.)