MC Game 1: Moncton 3 Vancouver 2

[Beaner]

A very entertaining game tonight, with lots of big hits, some rough stuff and some sweet goals by both sides. Giants dominated for the first 30 mins, but Moncton turned it around scored a couple quick goals and the play after that was pretty even for the rest of the game.

Of course the biggest concern for Giant Fans, was would the Giants adapt to the "new" rules? Even though the Giants took a lot of penalties in this game they were all "aggression" penalties and not the Hook/hold variety. So a bit of discipline needed form the boys but it looks like they have adapted to the change very quickly.

Some bad give-aways, and not enough quality scoring chances are what did the Giants in tonight, but overall a good effort from the boys after an 11 game break.

NOTES
Slade and Tordjman got the starts.
Mikkelson (Knee), Czibre, Rutherford, Flatters and Dulle were the Giants scratches
Repik made his return to the lineup after misssing the entire WHL Finals.
Shots 30/20 Giants
PP Moncton 1/9, Giants 0/6

GOALS
1. VAN - Michal Repik (1) (Tim Kraus) 01:17 Repik dishes to Kraus in the corner, Back to repik who has gone to the net and he beats the goalie, far side.
2. MON - Philippe Dupuis (1) (Stéphane Goulet, Andrew MacDonald) (pp) 12:35 Shot from Goulet, big rebound that goes to Dupuis, and he Beats a moving Slade, high.
3. MON - Brad Marchand (1) (Stéphane Goulet, Luc Bourdon) 4-2 on rush, Drop pass to Marchand and he fires a bullet that Slade just misses with the Glove.
4. VAN - Mitch Bartley (1) (Gilbert Brule, Michal Repik) 01:39 Repik fires a shot towards the net, and Bartley niftly defects it past Tordjman.
5. MON - Martins Karsums (1) (Philippe Dupuis) 06:15 Breakdown by the Giants, and Karsums gets the pcuk right in front of Slade in the deep slot, and he buries it high Glove side.

FISTICUFFS
Hunt vs. Belanger.

Not much of a fight here, but after a long match of a lot of people for pushing and shoving, These 2 go at it, Hunt gets the entire Wardrobe of Belanger off, and gets a few shot sin, but not much of a fight.

OFFICIATING
Mark Hicks from the OHL, I think he did a good job tonight. A couple questionable calls, but nothing extremely major here. Both teams were playing phyiscal, but I would say a good job. As consistent a job as we have seen all year out of the WHL.

OVERALL

I thought the Giants played well, but not as well as they have in the past. Not a lot of sustained pressure for the Giants, which I think hurt them. The Aggressive penalties they took were a bit undisciplined. Moncton looked very flat to start, but managed to turn it around and match the Giants stride for stride in the last half of the game. This was a game the Giants should have won, but they just couldnt bury their chances, and Moncton did when they had to. Both teams played very physical, which was nice to see.

Giants will need to really get their forecheck really going tomorrow if they want to win. PP was also very ineffective tonight, some more chances will need to be generated tomorrow as well.

A MUST win tomorrow for both teams tomorrow. Loser is more than likely out of the Tournament, as both Quebec and Vancouver are 0-1. GO GIANTS.

3 STARS
MON - Dupuis, Philippe
VAN - Repik, Michal
MON - Marchand, Brad

Good choices no complaints.

[Knuckles Muldoon]

Not a bad game by the Giants by any stretch, just not good enough to win a big game against a good team. I thought the Giants D played a very good game, as most of the team's problems in this game occurred from some very average play by some of the forwards. Not enough on the forecheck and not enough going to the net. As a result, the Giants cycling game was lacking. Give credit to Moncton's D, they handled the Giants well. The Giants PP was a very guilty culprit. It was lousy. Bad spacing, poor passing, too many blocked/deflected shots. I'd like to see them just keep setting up Franson, let him fire it, and go get the rebounds. Cody has a rocket, let's use it. The boys adjusted to the reffing stickwise, but the amount of aggressive penalties stalled the team's momentum in the second period. Maybe they were a little too excited, I don't know. But it needs to be corrected, pronto. From what I've seen, Vancouver and Moncton are the two most complete teams in the tournament. No shame in losing a close game to them here. But the focus now must be 100%, as any more losses will be devastating. Especially tomorrow. Just have to come out and dog Quebec hard; dare them to match the Giants depth and work ethic. I doubt they can.

[rinkrat]

Is it just me. Or did Slade miss that goal that was shot straight at his glove because he was trying to show off and make a "circus catch"?
It sure looked that way to me.
Also Fistric looks just like Jack the Giant when he has the lid off. LOL :thumb:

[Beaner]

That second goal looked like it just caught the outside of the glove.

I think Slade was more worried about another pass considering there were 3 guys bearing down on him with only 1 dman to cover........

PS: Chad Scharff wins the Beard growing contest.

[dondo]

yeah ugly PP, no puck support and as you said the spacing was suspect.

Good hard checking game though and unfortunately the Giants allowed the crowd back into the game and it seemed like the Wildcats rode the home crowd to victory. A soft third and latter part of the second though, but it was the Giants failure to capitalise on their chances early on which killed them in the end.

The G-Men completely outplayed the Cats in the first and the majority of the second but wasted their power play chances and allowed two unanswered goals in the second and never really recovered - even after tying it in the third.