Burke Hood stopped 33 of 34 shots and Cameron Schmidt had a pair of first period goals as Vancouver Giants extended their winning streak to four games on Friday night with a 3-1 road trip win over the Victoria Royals at Save on Foods Memorial Centre.
Tyler Thorpe hit the empty net with 1:26 to go to ensure the victory.
The Giants improve to 32-24-8-0 on the season and are now tied with the Portland Winterhawks for fifth place in the Western Conference with 72 points each. Both teams have four games remaining.
Associate coach Adam Maglio called it a "real solid effort by the group."
Maglio said Hood's tracking has been "unbelievable."
"The way he's getting ahead of plays 鈥� that's what has made him so good in my opinion. And then obviously his rebound control I think has also really, really improved. He's feeling it. Credit to him. He puts a ton of work in. Hood is one of our hardest workers every day. We could feel this was coming for him. He deserves it. He puts in the work every day."
Schmidt opened the scoring on an odd-man rush, after Adam Titlbach dished the puck to him at the offensive blue line and he wristed one from the top of the right circle past Johnny Hicks on the blocker side.
After Titlbach drew a hooking penalty, the Giants cashed in on the power play midway through the period, needing only 10 seconds of the man advantage to work the puck to Leslie on the left side and then Schmidt in the right circle, who made no mistake for his 38th goal of the season.
The draft-eligible Schmidt now has a five-game point streak, with nine points during that span (4G-5A). He also has goals in three straight for the first time since January.
Early in the second period, the Royals cut the Giants lead in half when Boehm scored on a breakaway, backhanding it through the five hole of Hood.
In the third period, Vancouver came through with back-to-back clutch penalty kills midway through the frame before Thorpe scored on the empty net from centre ice.
Then with 1:17 remaining, the Giants had to kill off a 6-on-4 for the remainder of the game and were able to come through.
Giants host the Royals on Saturday at LEC at 7 p.m. and then wrap up the weekend with a matinee in Portland on Sunday at 4 p.m.
