Home ice made the difference for the Vancouver Giants and Victoria Royals on Friday, Feb. 14 and Saturday, Feb 15.
Royals downed the visiting Giants 5-2 at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre, then the Giants returned the favour Saturday with a nail-biter 4-3 win at 91原创 Events Centre.
Kenta Isogai and Teydon Trembecky each scored a pair of goals for the Royals on Friday night.
Ty Halaburda and Tyler Thorpe each scored for the G-Men, whose only goal of the contest came on the power play.
In addition to two goals each from Isogai and Trembecky, Markus Loponen also found the back of the net for Victoria.
The next night, two goals from Ty Halaburda and nine saves from Burke Hood between overtime and a shootout led to a 4-3 Giants win over the Royals on Saturday night at the LEC.
Captain Mazden Leslie also scored in regulation for Vancouver, while Adam Titlbach delivered the win in the shootout, a one-handed goal.
Victoria erased a 2-0 deficit early in the third period when Nolan Stewart, Kenta Isogai and Justin Kipkie each found the back of the net in a span of 4:54 to give the visitors a 3-2 lead.
Halaburda would tie the game 3-3 with only 3:35 remaining to force overtime, which led to Hood's heroics and Titlbach's eventual game-winner.
Giants Head Coach Manny Viveiros thought they "played a really good game."
"We just got a little bit sleepy for a few minutes there in the third period," Viveiros remarked.
"A little bit lazy on the backheck there at the end of the power play... I liked the way the kids dug in. They worked, dug in and got back to work again and scored a big [third period] goal. We had some chances before that too to extend that lead, but that's going to happen sometimes. Nothing ever goes according to plan. You hope it does, but it never does. That's why hockey is such a good game."
The win improves Vancouver's record this season to 26-21-6, while Victoria falls to 32-14-3-6 on the season. The Giants are now 17-9-2-0 on home ice.
The Giants are home next on Monday, Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. against Prince George.
