The Vancouver Giants should have brought a few more Jon Blum bobbleheads to the party. That would have provided a distraction.
On a Friday night when the club handed out 1,000 bouncing-noggin toys celebrating former captain Blum, the Giants also gave away a chance to solidify their playoff chances, looking lacklustre in a 3-0 defeat to an undermanned Tri-City Americans at the Pacific Coliseum.
Vancouver came into the night two points behind the Americans for the second of two wildcard playoff spots in WHL Western Conference, with a game in hand. It’s basically eighth spot, the final postseason post.
The Americans were missing starting goalie Eric Comrie (lower body injury), leading scorer Parker Bowles (upper body injury) and overage import Richard Nejezchleb (undisclosed), as well as four others.
“I haven’t really seen this game in us,” said Giants coach Claude Noel. “We had had a good three games with speed. I saw no speed. I saw no continuity.
“You have to not overreact. We will take the evening and reassess it tomorrow and try to get something good out of the game.”
The first period had some energy to it. Vancouver, despite having the No. 3 ranked man-advantage unit in the WHL, couldn’t convert on a 1:15, two-man power play, and that ended up feeling like the last legit chance for them in the game.
Tri-City netminder Evan Sarthou wasn’t overly pressed on his way to a 32-save shutout before the crowd of 6,507.
The Americans are adept at finding goalies. Smart hockey people like Sarthou, 17. That said, he’s not yet on the level of Comrie, 19, a member of the Canadian world junior team who’s a candidate for most valuable player in the West.
Coming into the night, Comrie was 14-10-0-0, with 2.50 goals against and a .921 save percentage. Sarthou was 6-11-0-2, with a 3.62 goals against and a .887 save percentage.
Vancouver needed to capitalize. They could not.
“Maybe it gets us started,” Noel said of the possibility of scoring on the 5-on-3, “but we didn’t play very well. We didn’t play very well before the 5-on-3, so it was no surprise we couldn’t get going there. We had very few ‘A’ games. It was hard to find good players. Still, we had a possibility to win the game.
“If we get one there, it gets the fans into it and gives us a chance. It gives you some hope. We had nothing to rally around. We couldn’t get self started. It was a really difficult game to be a part of.”
Any chance at a comeback was nixed in the third when Thomas Foster took a kneeing major for a check deep in Tri-City territory on Brian Williams. The Americans scored once on the man-advantage, with former Giant Taylor Vickerman providing the marker.
Major penalties are automatically reviewed by the league and Foster could be looking at a suspension.
Vancouver (19-22-1-1) visit former coach Don Hay and the Kamloops Blazer Saturday, and then heads out for a five-game Eastern Conference road trip.
At least they don’t have to let the Tri-City game linger.
“I don’t think our will was there tonight,” said Vancouver captain Dalton Sward. “It showed. We couldn’t get on the scoreboard.
“It’s obviously going to stand out when you look at their roster. They were missing some pretty key players. I don’t know if we took that to heart and took them too easy. It wasn’t our best effort.”
