A combined 10 points from Adam Titlbach, Connor Levis and Tyler Thorpe produced a 5-2 win for the Vancouver Giants on the road against Portland Winterhawks on Sunday, Dec. 9.
Giants associate coach Adam Maglio thought the team showed consistency "through all our lines, all our D and our goaltending was great."
"We were consistent with our effort. It was through the whole 60 minutes. That's a big key against this Portland team because they come at you in waves."
Titlbach led the way offensively for Vancouver with a hat-trick 鈥� the first of his Western Hockey League career. Levis had a goal and two assists, while Thorpe had four assists.
Marek Howell also scored for the Giants, his first goal since coming over in a trade from Moose Jaw in the summer of 2023. Burke Hood delivered another knockout performance on the road, stopping 34 of 36 shots to improve to 5-4-3 this season. The Brandon, Man. native stopped 64 of 68 shots over two starts on the weekend, for a .941 save percentage.
Diego Buttazzoni and Kyle McDonough provided the goals for Portland.
For the third game in a row, the Giants opened the scoring, this time when Levis shovelled home a rebound on the backhand under the pad of goaltender Ondrej 艩t臎bet谩k at the 9:58 mark of the first period,
Vancouver maintained that one-goal lead through 20 minutes.
Just over six minutes into the second period, Howell extended Vancouver's lead to two, when he took a drop pass from Jaden Lipinski during 4-on-4 play and snapped it home for his first of the season and first in a Giants uniform.
The Teddy Bear goal finally came for the home side a few minutes later, when Buttazzoni one-timed a shot from the right point right off a face-off five seconds into a power play to make it 2-1 with 9:38 remaining in the second period.
After Teddy Bear clean up was complete, Vancouver got right back to their game.
First, Lipinski drew a holding the stick penalty and the ensuing power play, Thorpe zipped a perfect saucer pass backdoor to Titlbach who one-timed it to the back of the net to give the Giants a 3-1 lead.
Before the period was done, Thorpe, Levis and Tiltbach connected on a three-way passing play that was finished off by a one-timer from Titlbach to make it 4-1.
The Hawks got one goal back in third courtesy of McDonough, but that was as close as they'd come, as Titlbach completed the hat-trick by scoring on a breakaway into the empty net for his 12th goal of the season.Thorpe picked up his fourth assist of the game on the goal.
Next, a Friday the 13th game in Victoria.
