Breitkreuz wins it for Giants

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
Bob Green, the general manager of the Edmonton Oil Kings, was in the house Tuesday night so it was only fitting that Brett Breitkreuz bring down the curtain on the playoff game.
Breitkreuz, a 17-goal man in the WHL's regular season, scored his second goal of the game at 2:28 of overtime to give his Vancouver Giants a 5-4 victory over the Kamloops Blazers before 4,398 fans at Interior Savings Centre.
The Giants hold a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven first-round series with Game 4 at the ISC tonight. Game time is 7 o'clock.
“He hasn't scored many of those goals in Edmonton, that's for sure,” Vancouver head coach Don Hay said of Breitkreuz, a 20-year-old from Springside, Sask., who was acquired from the Oil Kings at the Jan. 10 trade deadline. “It was a big goal for Brett. He was a good player.”
Breitkreuz, a 6-foot-2, 210-pounder, was acquired because of his size, grit and tenacity as the Giants moved to get bigger up front at the deadline.
That deal paid off in a victory last night.
“Off the rush, James Henry made a great play to get it in there,” Breitkreuz said as he recalled the play that led to the winner. “We forechecked like we did probably a hundred times that game. We had a bit of a cycle going and one actually squirted out before that right towards me, but I didn't get a stick on it.
“We kept going . . . we got it back up there. James was the high guy and got a shot on net. I could see that he had a lane to get it through, so I just went to the (crease) and tried to get a stick on it.
“Luckily enough . . . ”
The teams had exchanged goals through three periods, before Vancouver ended it.
“Every time Kamloops took the lead we found a way to fight back,” Hay said. “We stuck with our game plan and kept doing the things that make us successful.”
Four times the Blazers scored to take the lead. And four times the Giants came back with the equalizer.
The Kamloops leads lasted six minutes 49 seconds, 2:29, 0:33 and 2:49.
The fourth lead was provided by centre C.J. Stretch, who was playing his 15th playoff game with the Blazers and looking for his first victory. For a brief time, it looked as though he would provide it after he scored his side's third power-play of the game at 6:35 of the third period.
But the Giants pulled even - again! - when forward Brendan Gallagher, the third man into the Kamloops zone, corralled a pass and beat goaltender Kurtis Mucha.
The Blazers had started well, as they also did in Game 1, and, with defenceman Josh Caron patrolling the left wing on a forward line, were physical and spent a lot of time in the offensive zone.
But the Blazers were hit with three minor penalties and that helped turn the tide. What had once been a 6-3 advantage in shots on goal for the home boys was 12-6 for the visitors when they scored their first goal to tie the score.
The teams had exchanged first-period power-play goals.
Defenceman Austin Madaisky joined the rush and scored off a terrific pass from centre Chase Schaber, who had carried the puck down the left wall, at 9:46.
The Giants got that one back seven minutes later when winger Lance Bouma, who must be on a first-name basis with Mucha by now, banged in his own rebound.
Kamloops forward Jake Trask, a healthy scratch for the last three games and with one goal in 25 games before that, gave his side the lead at 6:39 of the second period. The Giants turned over the puck as they tried to come out of their zone and Trask made them pay as he snapped a shot past goaltender Mark Segal.
The Giants, though, answered shortly thereafter and by now this had become the trend for the evening. This time it was Breitkreuz banging in a rebound as Mucha wasn't able to hang on to it with his catching mitt.
Then it was the turn of Kamloops defenceman Bronson Maschmeyer to supply his team with the lead. Maschmeyer, one of three former Vancouver defencemen with Kamloops, sifted a shot through a Schaber screen and past Segal.
Less than a minute later, at 14:03 of the second, Vancouver defenceman Nolan Toigo, a nephew of the team's majority owner, Ron Toigo, snapped a shot from the left faceoff dot that beat Mucha. Toigo, who doesn't have a goal in 120 regular-season games, now has three in 20 playoff games.
Mucha finished up with 34 saves, while Segal stopped 27 shots.
JUST NOTES: Referees Trevor Hanson and Andy Thiessen, officiating a Blazers game as a pairing for the first time this season, gave the Giants eight of 13 minor penalties. . . . The Blazers were 3-for-8 on the PP, but gave up a shorthanded goal. The Giants were 1-for-5 on the PP. . . . The Giants acquired Breitkreuz and F Tomas Vincour, 19, from Edmonton for F Garry Nunn, 20, F Mike Piluso, 19, F Sebastien Svendsen, 18, a 2010 fifth-round bantam draft pick, a 2011 third-round pick and a conditional third-rounder in 2012. . . . Blazers majority owner Tom Gaglardi took in the game from upstairs.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
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