After a win at home on Friday, Vancouver Giants fell to Kelowna on the road Saturday.
Giants defeated the Penticton Vees 3-2 in a shootout in a game, a win in no small part due to goaltender Kelton Pyne, who had a 37-save performance on Friday night at the Langley Events Centre.
Vancouver opened the scoring 15 minutes into the first, when Jan Skok scored his first goal in the WHL.
Then, Vees tied the game five minutes into the second. Penticton got the go-ahead goal with only three minutes left in the third, but Vancouver equalized just 33 seconds later with a goal from Misha Volotovskii to send the game to overtime. After a scoreless OT, Jakob Oreskovic scored the only goal in the shootout on Vancouver’s third attempt to win the game.
Giants Head Coach Parker Burgess credited attention to “simple stuff.”
“Moving our feet, finishing checks, being disciplined, just having the right mindset, knowing who you’re out against. We’ve shown we can do it and it’s not abnormal to have a young team who needs to work on the consistency factor of it. It was great to see tonight.”
Saturday, Giants ended up down 5-0 after the first period of their game against Kelowna Rockets at Prospera Place.
After surrendering four Rockets goals in the first 7:18 of the game and then another late in the first, Vancouver was just too far behind.
Giants got on the board early in the second to make it 5-1 and eventually 6-2.
Kelowna scored twice early in the third to make it an 8-2 final score.
Leonardo Domenichelli and Jaxson Pawlenchuk each scored for the Giants.
Next, Giants return to Langley for a Family Day game on Monday, hosting the Seattle Thunderbirds. Puck drop is 2 p.m.