Blazers 2 @ Giants 3 - Mar. 10th

[Beaner]

Well a very spirited and chippy affair at the Coliseum tonight on Cam Neely night. Lots of hits, fights, and cheap shots delivered by both teams tonight, but probably the biggest surprise was how undisciplined Kamloops was in a game that ment so much for them to have a chance to advance to the playoffs. Vancouver I thought did not have a very good game, and had a lot of problems getting out of their own zone, turning over the puck on numerous occassions.

NOTES
Slade and Dubnyk got the starts
Slade left the game with just under 4 mins left in the third after getting run by Delaronde; Don Hay said in the post game show, he was dizzy still and was a question mark for tomorrow.
Gutierrez left the game mid-way thru the third after taking a huge Fistric check right at the red line. He looked a bit dazed, but no report on the Giants post game show.
Mikkelson (Knee), Kraus (Jaw), Lucic (Hand), Deck, Parker (?), Dulle (?) were the Giants scratches.
Shots 30/19 Giants
PP 2/9 Giants, 1/6 Blazers

GOALS
Scoring
1. VAN Brule, (19) (Bartley, Machacek), 6:01 (PP) 5-4, Shot comes in rebound out front and Brule somehow manages to get it under Dubnyk and into the net with Dubnyk on the ice prone.
2. KAM Rome, (29) , 12:11 (PEN/SH) After a major mix-up between Slade and the Defenceman which ends up in Nixon ending up with the puck, and Slade and the Defender prone on the ice, Slade throws the stick in a last ditch effort, misses, and Nixon then hits the post on the wide open cage. Rome takes the PS, and beats Slade clean with a shot glove side.
3. VAN Brule, (20) (Watt), 4:19 Watt chips the puck up to Brule breaking down the wing on the 2-1, and Brule fires a wrist shot that beats Dubnyk Glove side, fromt he top of the circle.
3. KAM Nixon, (24) (Jorgensen, Tesliuk), 10:23 (PP) 5-4, Shot comes in rebound, and Nixon gets 2 whacks at it int he mad scramble with bodies flying every where and it gets in.
3. VAN Albers, (17) (Franson, Watt), 16:38 (PP) 5-4, Albers gets the puck at the point, and fires a soft wrister that goes thru a tonne of traffic and right by the screened Dubnyk.

FISTICUFFS

There were a LOT tonight, going to try my best to recap them all.....

Ellerby vs. Lamb
After exchanging a couple slashes, the play moves to the Giants zone and everyone except Ellerby goes to the play. He stops at the red line and ditches the gloves and the lid. Finally Lamb realizes he has been challenged, and he skates over, from his own zone, and drops the gear. the dance around for what seemed like forever, and then they finally lock up and get at it. Lamb gets the better punches in, knocking Ellerby a couple times with some good punches. Each get 5, but why Ellerby who, clearly instigated the fight didn't get the 2/5/10 makes no sense to me. WIN: LAMB

Jorgenson vs. Scharff
After a scrum along the boards, these two end up dropping the mits. More wrestling match than anything, Jorgenson managed to hit Scharff a couple times, and Scharff got one shot in at the end. 5 Each. DRAW.

Czibre vs. Dunstall
Can't remember how this got started, but they go and Czibre gets the early advantage landing some nice shots that stun Dunstall. After a bit of wresling and a few more Czibre hits, Dunstall turns it on and catches Czibre a couple times with some nice hard shots. Each get 5 DRAW

Repik vs. Tesliuk
More commotion along the boards after the whistle and these two end up coming out of the pile going at it. Repik hung on for dear life all fight, keeping Tesliuk tied up for most of the fight, and his head down, but Tesliuk did manage to get a couple shots in, before it was over. 5 Each WIN TESLIUK

Hunt vs. Skrudland
After Kamloops scores to tie it up, Skrudland decides now is the time to pick a fight and he decides it will be Hunt. They drop the gloves fast, Helmets on, and they are going at it. Hunt gets in close quick, due to the overwhelming size advantage for Skrudland ( 6'5" vs 5'9"), and he delivers a bunch of blows catching Skrudland off guard, and popping his Helmet off. Hunt continues to throw punches like a mad man, and Skrudland may have got one or two shots in, but Hunt clearly dominated the much bigger Skrudland. Skrudland gets the 2/5/10, Hunt 5. WIN: HUNT

OFFICIATING
Kirk got the call tonight and he was an idiot. No idea what the heck he was watching, what he was doing and he never had control of this game from the opening whistle. It got to the point where after every whistle, players were trying to find out what the **** was going on in his head. Blown calls, wrong calls, not sending guys to the box, it was terrible. I found myself wishing Savage was here . At the end of the game, Rome gave him a bunch of stick taps on the ice to acknowledge the terrible job he did, and I agree with Rome.

OVERALL
A chippy affair tonight. Both teams seemed more interested in getting personal shots in then playing hockey. Made for an exciting game to watch as a fan, but I was very surprised, especially, as I said before with Kamloops having so much on the line..

Giants were very, very, sloppy int heir own zone, and if the Blazers would have been able to play with some kind of discipline tonight, they would have more than likely won this game. I can think of 3 penalties they took right of the top of my head that were terrible and just plain selfish ones. The Slade running, Skrudland instigating that fight, and the Bench minor they took at the end of 2 to put themselves down 2 men to start the third.

Giants I think got lucky tonight, not their best effort, but they did just enough to get the win. The shakey play in their own zone had me concerned, but I'm sure they will bounce back just fine tomorrow.

3 STARS
1. VAN - 17 Gilbert Brule
2. KAM - 9 Ashton Rome
3. VAN - 37 Dustin Slade

PLAYOFF UPDATES
With that win, Giants have clinched home ice advantage for the first 2 rounds of the playoffs, and can now finish no worse than 2nd in the Western Conference. Also, with the MH loss in KTN, thanks KTN, Vancouver is now tied with MH for first overall, with MH haveing 1 game in hand.

So lets go to Kamloops tomorrow and get another win and put some distance between us and MH.

[Big Daddy]

Slade saved the Giants a**es tonight. Could have been a different outcome if not for Dustin. Good job Dustin! Nice to see Brule and Albers get on the board and get some confidence back. Now, if some of the other guys get going I think we'll be ready for the playoffs.

[rinkrat]

Nice shot Nixon.Maybe we could take you to WhiteRock and see if you could hit water off the Pier... HAHAHA
ding

[Carebear]

Awesome awesome game.

I was distracted by other things happening there (i was hit in the back of the head with gum, and some ******* gross old man checked me out and then touched me..if he's reading this....you're a sick ******.)

BUUUUUUUUUUUT...the game was awesome.

Hunt totally dropped that guy, it was beautiful. His mom was behind me and she was going nuts, it was priceless.

I got my Giants hockey cards tonight, woohoo!

I was a little disappointed in Bartley tonight...he just didn't seem to be with it, and Fistric was hit or miss every shift.

Hoping that Slade is okay!!!!!!!!!!

[Knuckles Muldoon]

I like games like this one tonight. Big crowd, Friday night, everybody on edge. Makes for a spirited game. Referee Kirk was abysmal; he seemed to have no idea what was going on at times. Horrible. The Hunt-Skrudland scrap was worth the ticket price all by itself, as Garet gave away about 8 inches and smacked around a much bigger guy. The kid has plenty of sack, that's for sure. I thought Albers had one of his worst games of the year, but somehow manages to score the winning goal. Go figure. Slade played well, but again when the chips are down, Dubnyk cannot beat the Giants. He has never stolen a game in Vancouver and quite frankly, is Brule's personal whipping boy, as Gilbert has ventilated Duby consistently over the past 3 years. Loved the hit by Fistric on Gutierrez, as he stood him up and flattened him beautifully at center ice. Wish Fisty would step up and make his presence felt like that more often. I was pretty surprised that Loops didn't come out hungrier to start the game. They did step it up after the first as someone must have reminded them that their season was on the line. But ultimately, the Blazers took too many dumb penalties. Their season was flushed by Delaronde when he stupidly ran Slade, taking a penalty which led to the eventual winner. A crazy move. The bottom line is that Loops have too many ineffective forwards. Kassian has become a big nothing, Mulock is a VERY average 20 yo and guys like Stretch don't accomplish much out there. Rome tries, but he sure doesn't have much help out there. The Blazers are a decent team, but all-in-all they are the worst, or better put, least best team in the division. All other 4 teams are indeed better than they are and that's just the honest truth. Maybe a year out of the playoffs will spur the organization to refocus and re-evaluate some things.

[Swando]

Worst 2nd period of hockey I have seen from our boys in a long time --maybe worst of the year. Bad passes, give aways etc. Redeemed themselves in the 3rd thanks also to some stupid plays by Kamloops. It was nice to see Fistric finally step up and lay into someone with a body check. The refereeing was terrible and it took much of the flow out of the game. If Lucic was healthy I'd love to drive up to Loops and take in the game on Saturday night.

[scamperdog]

Delaronde what an IDIOT, that play described the entire Blazer season, so much on the line, as much as I enjoyed seeing Slade get hit there is a time and place for everything and that was not it, Delaronde showed why this team is not in the playoffs.

[Knuckles Muldoon]

Delaronde what an IDIOT, that play described the entire Blazer season, so much on the line, as much as I enjoyed seeing Slade get hit there is a time and place for everything and that was not it, Delaronde showed why this team is not in the playoffs.

Gotta agree. But there's a coaching problem there, too. With a 2-2 game in the 3rd period, I'd be telling my players to avoid Slade and stick to the game. Slade is notorious for stirring up crap and there is no way the Blazers should be thinking about trying to get him off his game at that point with their season on the line. Not focused , not smart.

[HockeyHairIsSexy]

Great review of the game! Only Mark Fistric got third star not Dustin.

[Cougar Guy]

Delaronde what an IDIOT

LOL. I was thinking the same thing when I heard one of our radio guys say how a Blazer had just run over Slade (Bristowe was updating the game on the Cougar post game show). Then when I got home I saw that Vancouver scored on the ensuing pp.

Thanks Delaronde