Vancouver Giants are on the verge of clinching their fourth consecutive playoff berth after a tight 3-1 win over the visiting Wenatchee Wild on Sunday afternoon the ended a five-game run of losses.
G-Men donned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tribute jerseys for the event, on RE/MAX presents Nickelodeon Night at the 91原创 Events Centre.
The win improves Vancouver's record this season to 29-24-8-0, while Wenatchee drops to 21-31-7-1. With 66 points on the season, the Giants are now either one point or a Wenatchee loss away from officially clinching a berth in the 2025 WHL playoffs. Wenatchee plays next on Wednesday; Vancouver faces Kamloops on Saturday.
Mazden Leslie scored his 18th and 19th goals of the season for the G-Men on Sunday 鈥� one of which was the game-winner 鈥� while Tyler Thorpe also found the scoresheet with his 26th tally of the season. Burke Hood was 91原创enal again with 39 saves and was named the first star, picking up the 15th win of his rookie season in the process.
Brendan Dunphy had the lone goal for the Wild.
Giants head coach Manny Viveiros said both teams were tired.
"We didn't have the energy that we had our other three games this week and same with Wenatchee, they're tired too, they're coming off a three-in-three too, but I think we did enough good things to get the win," Viveiros said.
Captain Mazden Leslie said Giants were expecting a tough game from the Wild.
"They're battling to make the playoffs," Leslie noted.
"We just stuck with it."
As for the run of losses, Leslie commented, "I thought we played honestly not too bad, just couldn't get a win, so [it's] big to snap the losing streak before we have a little bit of a break."
Dunphy opened the scoring for the Wild 30 seconds into their first power play of the game, snapping a shot from the high slot to make it 1-0 at the 9:55 mark of the opening frame.
Late in the first, the Giants got the equalizer off the rush when Thorpe went around the diving defender at the right circle and roofed it past Gee.
With under five minutes left in the second, the Giants took their first lead of the game after Cameron Schmidt connected with Leslie on a cross-ice pass on the power play, with Leslie finishing short side from the left circle.
Wenatchee pushed back in the third period, firing 13 shots on net, but Hood turned away each and every one of them, including on a brief 6-on-4 after Vancouver was whistled for delay of game with 3:47 left in the game.
Leslie hit the empty net from his own zone during 6-on-5 play with 1:22 remaining to make the final score 3-1.
Next, a Saturday, March 8 trip to Kamloops followed by a Sunday home game at 4 p.m. against Prince George.
