The Vancouver Giants, who over the years have provided a model of how to operate a junior or minor-pro team in a big-league market, announced Friday they will host the 2016 CHL/NHL Top Prospects game.
That was the good news. The bad news was that they had to play later in the day. The Giants (26-39-3) lost their eighth consecutive Western Hockey League game, while the Victoria Royals (37-27-4) won their third straight, in a 2-0 Victoria victory before 6,421 fans at the PNE Pacific Coliseum.
Coleman Vollrath recorded 25 saves for this fifth shutout of the season. Victoria also put 25 shots on Cody Porter.
The Royals ended a four-game B.C. Division road swing that took them from the Cariboo through the Okanagan and finally down to the Lower Mainland.
The Victoria special teams got the Royals on the board in the first period Friday night against the Giants, when Brandon Magee scored short-handed at 7:49. Alex Forsberg, with his 26th goal of the season, increased the lead at 2:11 of the second period.
“We played really well in the first period tonight,” said Royals head coach Dave Lowry.
“And whenever there was a breakdown, our goalie made the save. He was square [to the shots] and helped himself by not letting out a lot of rebounds.”
The Royals have clinched a playoff berth and are guaranteed to finish second in the B.C. Division and have home-ice advantage against the third-place team in the division, in a first-round series beginning March 27-28 at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. The Kamloops Blazers and Prince George Cougars are currently tied for third in the division.
The path to the playoffs grew ever more narrow for the Giants, who trail the Blazers and Cougars by six points, with each team having four regular-season games remaining. The other chance for Vancouver is to capture the final Western Conference wildcard berth in a race in which it also trails the Tri City Americans by six points, with Tri City holding a game in hand.
The Royals have 233 goals this season, which is five shy of the franchise record 238 established last season, when the team recorded a franchise-record 48 victories. The team has four games remaining in the regular season in which to break the record.
The Royals and Giants are engaged in a rare three-games-in-three-days set against each other, continuing tonight and concluding Sunday afternoon at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. “That’s why we rolled through four lines tonight, to give the players as much rest as possible, so they will have jump through the rest of the weekend,” said Lowry.
The 10-game season series between Victoria and Vancouver is tied 4-4.
The Royals will close out the regular season with a home-and-away set March 20-21 against Everett.
