To paraphrase the old line from Seinfeld, the Victoria Royals know how to take a lead, they just don’t know how to hold a lead.
The Royals frittered away a four-goal advantage Saturday night at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in a 7-6 overtime loss to the Vancouver Giants. The night before at the Langley Events Centre, the Royals led 3-0 in the second period before succumbing to the Giants in a 5-3 loss.
Trailing 5-1 in the second period on Saturday, the Giants had the Royals just where they wanted them.
“We need to play tighter defence and bear down and get back that killer instinct,” said Victoria goaltender Braden Holt.
“And we need to win the face-offs in our defensive zone. It’s frustrating and we’re feeling that in the room.”
And Holt readily admitted the Victoria goaltending, strong earlier in the season, needs to be better than the last three games, all losses.
Vancouver is really coming on. Any team that features Slovak world junior championship tournament veteran and Calgary Flames first-round NHL draft-pick Samuel Honzek, taken 16th overall in the 2023 NHL draft, can’t be taken lightly. But the Giants have so much more than that as Connor Levis recorded a hat-trick for the visitors (20-24-2). Defenceman Justin Kipkie, a draft pick of the Arizona Coyotes, and Tyson Laventure scored twice for Victoria (24-16-7).
“They [Giants] are feeling pretty good about themselves. They have four points in the last two games and we have one,” said Victoria head coach James Patrick.
“Once we built the lead, they got more aggressive, and we had trouble handling it. They won 80 percent of the face-offs and it starts with that. They are able to chip it in and pressure our defence, which is having a real tough time with an inability to pin someone. Kipkie has to play 30 minutes a night and that’s hard for anyone.”
That is chiefly because the Royals’ injured 2024 NHL draft-ranked blueliner Nate Misskey is out month-to-month, leaving what Patrick described as a “huge hole.” So much so that Victoria forward and team co-leading-points scorer Dawson Pasternak was put back on defence.
“This has been rich for our young defence,” added Patrick.
“Someone has to step up and do something out of character, like Pasternak did for us tonight. I’m not blaming our defence. [But] at crucial times we haven’t gotten in the shot lanes and at crucial times we haven’t gotten the saves when we need them.”
Victoria has looked like a completely different team from the first half to the second half of both games against the Giants, whose drilling, driving offence outshot Victoria 41-25 on Saturday.
The teams close out their three-game cross-strait rivalry set this afternoon at 3 p.m. at the Memorial Centre.
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