Giants Rocket Past Kelowna 6-3

By Laura Gallant - January 3, 2010

photo: Chris Relke click image to view
The Giants outshot the Kelowna Rockets 19-1 in the second period and scored five straight goals to set Vancouver up for a 6-3 walloping over the Rockets Sunday night in front of 9,610 Giants fans, a record attendance.

The Rockets struck early just 21 seconds into the game Kelowna’s Shane McColgan fired a quick shot that went under the crossbar, short side and over the shoulder of Giants goalie Mark Segal. However, the Giants fought back with Kevin Connauton’s shot from the point that beat Rocket’s goalie Mark Guggenberger to score his 18th of the season. McColgan scored his second goal of the night late into the first period to edge his team to a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission.


The Giants racked up the goals in the second period with five straight, four of them scored within a span of four minutes and two seconds. A shot from Gary Nunn in the high slot tied the game, followed by goals from Neil Manning and two from Craig Cunningham. After four straight goals Kelowna’s bench got fed up with backup goalie Guggenberger, pulled him and replaced him with starter Adam Brown. However, Brown couldn’t stop Connauton’s record setting goal and second of the night to put the Giants up 6-2.

Player of the month for December, Connauton surpassed the Giants team record of most goals scored by a defenseman in a season with 19 goals. Connauton was not the only one with a big night, Cunningham’s two goals and two assists have bumped him up to a first place tie in points in the WHL with 63 and earned him first star for the night.

Tyler Halliday scored with just under two minutes left in the game but it was too little, too late for the Rockets as they fell to the Giants 6-3.

Kelowna’s goalies had a busy night in net between Adam and Guggenberger they faced 38 shots from the Giants. Mark Segal had a quieter night facing 18 shots.

Vancouver’s power play went 3 for 7 Sunday while the Rockets scored on 1 of 6 power play opportunities. The Giants lead the league in power play goals with 62.

Vancouver is on the road for the next ten games, starting Wednesday in Red Deer. Game time is 6:00pm with the pre game show on AM 650 at 5:30pm (Pacific Time). The Giants next home game is January 30th against Prince George. It will be the first of six home games the Giants will play at the Langley Events Centre while VANOC takes over the Pacific Coliseum for the Olympics.

Audio
Brook Ward talks to Kevin Connauton following his record breaking night.



Morley Scott and Bill Wilms talk to Coach Don Hay following the Giants 6-3 win over Kelowna.

Connauton ignites Giants' win over Kelowna

Defenceman sets team scoring record for defencemen as marathon road trip gets set to begin

By Ian Walker, Vancouver Sun

January 4, 2010

Gary Nunn of the Vancouver Giants battles in front of the net against Colton Jobke, MacKenzie Johnston and relief goaltender Adam Brown of the Kelowna Rockets on Sunday at the Pacific Coliseum. The Giants won 6-3.Photograph by: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Sun

Nineteen goals in 40 games may not seem like a lot, say in the instance you were talking about a forward or someone by the name of Lawrence Sacharuk. Either of which we're not.

Still, that's not to say what Vancouver Giants defenceman Kevin Connauton has done this season doesn't deserve some context.

The Vancouver Canucks prospect set a Giants' record for scoring by a blue-liner with his two goals in a 6-3 victory over the Kelowna Rockets in front of 9,610 fans at Pacific Coliseum on Sunday night.

Connauton bettered Jon Blum's mark of 18 goals, set two seasons ago. Yes, that Jon Blum. The skinny Californian kid regarded by many as the greatest player to ever put on a Giants' jersey.

Blum, by the way, needed 64 games to better Paul Albers' high of 17, set in 2005-06.

Connauton tied the game -- and Blum -- with a wrist shot that beat Mark Guggenberger five-hole at 14:42 of the first period. The Edmonton native set the record late in the second period, unleashing a low slapper to give the home team a 6-1 lead heading into the third.

Craig Cunningham also scored twice for Vancouver, while Garry Nunn and Neil Manning added singles. Shane McColgan, with a pair, and Tyrell Goulbourne had Kelowna's goals.

Giants' goalie Mark Segal earned the win, stopping 15 of the 18 shots.

Guggenberger was credited with the loss, finishing with 17 saves before being pulled in favour of backup Adam Brown after Vancouver went up 5-1 midway through the second period. Brown faced 17 shots in relief.

Not only was the game Vancouver's first victory in 2010, but it was the Giants' final game at the Pacific Coliseum for more than two months due to the Olympics.

Vancouver boarded the bus immediately after the game for Jasper, where players will engage in some team building exercises before a four-games-in-five-nights eastern swing.

The Giants will play their next 27 games on the road, albeit six will count as "home" games as Vancouver moves into the Langley Events Centre while the Pacific Coliseum is in use.

iwalker@vancouversun.com---------

NEXT GAME

Wednesday

vs Red Deer Rebels

6 p.m.

at Enmax Centrium

AM 650

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Inconsistency is the only sure thing

Canucks draft pick Connauton sets team D-man record

By Steve Ewen, The Province

January 4, 2010

The Vancouver Giants are a trip.

Just when you think you've got them figured out, they prove you wrong. And when you start to believe that you'll never quite get them, they get you there, too.

Consider their 6-3 win over the Kelowna Rockets before a crowd of 9,610 at the Pacific Coliseum Sunday night.

The Giants played one of their more entertaining and intense affairs of the season Saturday night in a 2-1 loss to the Spokane Chiefs. It seemed every bit the rallying point.

Sure enough, the ever-inconsistent Giants responded Sunday by giving up bad goals in the first and last minutes of a dour first period against the Rockets, a team so riddled with injuries that they nearly had to call up a player from one of those Tim Horton's mini-tyke intermission games.

That 2-1 deficit also featured Vancouver losing centre Milan Kytnar for the rest of the game, and possibly longer, to an apparent shoulder injury when he was dumped into the boards by Kelowna defenceman Tyson Barrie.

Vancouver's mindset has been about as solid as your grandmother's fine china in even better circumstances. So what do they do in the second? They score four goals in a 4:02 span and use that to power them to a victory. They outshot Kelowna 19-1 in that span.

Defenceman Kevin Connauton, the Vancouver Canuck draft pick, had the most noteworthy markers of the night. His two power-play goals, on blasts from the point through traffic in the first and second periods, respectively, gave him 19 goals on the season and set the team record for tallies in a season by a defenceman.

Jon Blum set the former mark, with 18 goals, in 2007-08. He played 64 games that season. Connauton, 19, who got coaxed into jumping to the Giants from Western Michigan University this summer by the Canucks after they picked him in the third round of the entry draft, was playing his 40th game of the season Sunday.

Meanwhile, centre Craig Cunningham, who is still missing five teeth and playing with a full face shield after taking a puck in the mouth in Wednesday's dreary 4-1 loss to the Prince George Cougars, had two goals and two assists for the Giants (25-14-1-2). That gives him 63 points on the season and pushes him into a tie for the league scoring lead with Calgary Hitmen star Brandon Kozun, who is busy with world juniors.

Single tallies went defenceman Neil Manning and winger Garry Nunn.

Goaltender Mark Segal, who looked sloppy on Shane McColgan's goal 21 seconds in and McColgan's marker with nine seconds left in the frame, settled down and finished with 15 saves.

The Rockets (19-21-2-0) yanked goalie Mark Guggenberger midway through the second after Vancouver's fifth goal. He finished with 17 saves. Adam Brown had 15 stops.

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