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Victoria Royals topple Giants with late blitz

It’s maybe time to remove the qualifier “surprising” when describing the Victoria Royals. They are proving to be for real. And perhaps it’s time to add “disappointing” when analyzing the Vancouver Giants.
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Royals defenceman Jacob Herauf gets a face full of jersey as he closes down Giants forward Milos Roman during WHL action at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre on Wednesday night.

It’s maybe time to remove the qualifier “surprising” when describing the Victoria Royals. They are proving to be for real.

And perhaps it’s time to add “disappointing” when analyzing the Vancouver Giants.

The largely-unheralded Royals (14-8-2) defeated the 2018-19 WHL-finalist Giants, one of the touted teams entering this season, 3-1 on Wednesday in front of 3,452 fans at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

The result moved B.C. Division third-place Victoria two points ahead of Vancouver (13-12-2) with three games in hand. Victoria has earned points in nine of the last 10 games. The Royals are now 8-2-1 in their last 11 games.

Victoria forward Graeme Bryks opened scoring just 20 seconds in on a feed from Brandon Cutler. That held through two sessions, thanks mainly to the netminding of the Royals’ Shane Farkas as Vancouver outshot Victoria 18-6 in the second period en route to a 34-20 game advantage.

Farkas was the well-deserved first star and only lost his shutout bid at 18:18 of the third period when Cole Shepard scored for Vancouver on an assist by 2020 NHL draft first-round projected Justin Sourdif.

After recording a no-penalty game against Spokane, the Royals’ penalty kill was severely stressed, but didn’t snap, in holding the Giants’ power-play 0-6. In fact, it was one of those penalties that provided Victoria with what turned out to be the winning goal in the third period. Cutler hit Gary Haden for a breakaway coming out of the penalty box. Haden was stopped by Giants goaltender and NHL Arizona Coyotes draft pick David Tendeck. But Swiss rookie Keanu Derungs scored on the rebound at 11:13. Victoria defenceman-turned-forward Nolan Jones scored his first goal of the season off a Vancouver turnover 43 seconds later.

Defenceman Will Warm will wear the ‘C’ on an interim basis while Royals captain Phillip Schultz is in Minsk, Belarus, to play for Denmark in the IIHF Tier-2 junior hockey championship. Schultz will return to the Royals after Christmas.

With Sean Gulka and Kaid Oliver missing for the third consecutive game to injuries, and Schultz on national team assignment, Victoria’s forward depth has become an issue but the Royals managed to get the job done despite being widely outplayed by a starrier team in terms of outright individual talent.

The Royals remain on Blanshard to play the Seattle Thunderbirds on Friday and Saturday.