Vancouver Giants opened their season with a win, a 4-3 overtime victory over Seattle before 3,619 at the Langley Events Centre on Friday, Sept. 20.
Cameron Schmidt had a pair of goals 105 seconds apart and Tyler Thorpe scored the overtime winner.
Aaron Obobaifo had the other tally for the G-Men, who began the third period down 2-0, but scored three goals in a span of 5:11 to take a 3-2 lead.
After a scoreless first period, Seattle scored two goals in 51 seconds, each of them off fortunate bounces.
Vancouver was able to generate some solid looks in the back half of the second period, but rookie goaltender Grayson Malinoski made some key saves to keep the visitors up 2-0 after two periods. At that point, the G-Men were outshooting Seattle 23-18.
Early in the third period, things changed 鈥� and quickly.
Schmidt got things rolling just over four minutes in when he stole the puck from Braeden Cootes at the offensive blue line and scored on a breakaway with a nice backhand finish.
Less than two minutes later, Schmidt cashed in a power play thanks to a cross-ice pass from Adam Titlbach.
Just 3:26 after Schmidt's game-tying-goal, Kyren Gronick took a backhand pass from Thorpe at the right circle and launched a feed to the far-side post to Obobaifo, who simply had to tap it in to give the Giants a 3-2 lead.
But in the dying seconds of the game, with the goalie pulled, Seattle's Kazden Mathies was the first one onto a bouncing puck in the slot and chipped it over the blocker of Hutchison to send the game to overtime tied at three.
The Giants had all the possession in the 3-on-3 overtime, and just over one minute in, Thorpe ended it after taking a pass from Zimmer and letting a shot go that whizzed past Malinoski on the blocker side.
Giants Head Coach Manny Viveiros called it a "really good battle."
"We gave up a couple unlucky goals, but that's going to happen at this level 鈥� at any level 鈥� and the kids stayed calm and played the game that we wanted them to play and got back. We got some timely goals and some momentum and we rode it from there."
Netminder Matthew Hutchison called it a "fun win."
"I thought the boys did a really good job of staying calm and fighting throughout the whole game,"Hutchison said. "We didn't wilt."
Next for the G-Men, a trip to Angel of the Winds Arena tonight, Saturday Sept. 21 for a game against Everett Silvertips.
Giants next home game is Friday Sept. 27 against Prince George Cougars.
