It’s easy to debate whether the Vancouver Giants or the Spokane Chiefs come into the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference championship with the most momentum.
Vancouver (48-15-3-2) won the regular season banner in the 10-team loop, powered by a 24-3-1-2 run after the Jan. 10 trade deadline. They needed six games to beat the wild card qualifying Seattle Thunderbirds (31-29-6-2) in the first round and then swept the No. 5 seeded Victoria Royals (34-30-2-2) in the semifinals.
Spokane (40-21-2-5) finished third in the conference, 14 points behind Vancouver. They were 10-2-0-0 in their final 12 games, including a 4-1 win at home over the Giants on March 8, and then they beat two teams in the playoffs with better records than the two teams Vancouver ousted, dumping the No. 4 seeded Portland Winterhawks (40-22-3-3) in five games and the No. 2 Everett Silvertips (47-16-2-3) in five.
Vancouver and Spokane get their best-of-seven set going Friday at the Langley Events Centre. It has the makings of engaging theatre. Here’s a look at five keys to the series.
Giants fans will tell you that 17-year-old Byram, who led all rearguards in the three major junior leagues in goals (26) in the regular season, should have been the WHL Western Conference nominee for defenceman of the year. It instead went to Chiefs captain Smith, 18, who was one of the six WHLers on Team Canada at the world juniors.
Byram (26-45-71) finished third in points among WHL blue liners, while Smith (7-62-69) was two points back, despite playing 10 less games. A year ago this week, they were defence partners for a Team Canada entry coached by former Giants bench boss Don Hay at the Under-18 world championships in Russia.
Smith was the first WHLer picked in the 2018 NHL Draft, going 17th to the New Jersey Devils. Byram is expected to be a top-five pick in this year’s draft, which goes in June at Rogers Arena.
Smith is originally from Lloydminster, Alta., and his family now resides in Saskatoon. He came west and played his bantam draft season in 2014-15 with the Delta Hockey Academy, which is run by former Giants strength and conditioning coach Ian Gallagher.
The past two summers, he’s trained under Gallagher as part of a group that includes Vancouver Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher and Montreal Canadiens right-winger Brendan Gallagher, the strength coach’s son and a former Giants stalwart.
Smith is a savvy, quarterback type and that shines through, especially when the Chiefs have a man advantage. Spokane’s power play through 10 playoff games is connecting at a hard-to-fathom 48 per cent (12-of-25). They were the No. 1 team in the 22-team WHL in that category in the regular season as well, checking in at 29.1 per cent (81-of-278).
Vancouver had the league’s No. 2 penalty killing in league play, working away at 84.9 per cent (43 goals against, 285 opportunities), but Spokane’s power play came in at 43.8 per cent (7-of-16) in the four head-to-head meetings with Vancouver. The Giants went 3-1-0-0 in those games, but, rest assured, that’s not a trick they want to try to pull off again.
The Giants split netminding time between Tendeck, 19, and Miner, 18, throughout the regular season and they’ve platooned them through the past six playoff games, which goes against traditional thinking. Vancouver dominated the run of play against Victoria so much so that it’s hard to fairly judge either netminder.
Meanwhile, Spokane is the third WHL club for Brkin, 19, after brief runs with the Swift Current Broncos and Kootenay Ice. The Chiefs landed him from the Ice for a 2019 eighth-round bantam pick just before 2018 trade deadline and Brkin has taken hold of the Spokane starting job this season, putting up a 2.26 goals against and a .931 save percentage in the playoffs.
Brkin played bantam in Sherwood Park, Alta., with Vancouver defenceman Dylan Plouffe and forward Jadon Joseph, and Giants associate coach Jamie Heward was on the Swift Current staff when Brkin was there, so the Giants should have background on him.
Teams can utilize three 20 year olds apiece, and those guys certainly need to be key in the playoffs. Koch, a centre, is one of Vancouver’s trio of over-agers, and, as of Sunday morning, he was leading the WHL playoffs in scoring with 14 points, including two goals.
Smith is one of Spokane’s three. The right-winger has four goals and five points in the playoffs to date. More telling to this series, he has 12 goals and 20 points in 18 games against Vancouver over the past three regular seasons. Spokane landed Smith from the Kamloops Blazers in a November trade, and Kamloops had obtained him in a December, 2016 deal with the Regina Pats.