RECAP: Giants Offence Smothered by Americans in Road Loss

Category: ArticleNovember 7, 2025

Kennewick, WA – Connor Dale, Gavin Garland and Savin Virk combined for 10 points in a 5-2 Tri-City Americans win over the Vancouver Giants on Friday night at Toyota Center.

The loss drops the Giants’ overall record to 8-9-0-1, while the Americans improve to 7-7-1-0.

Marek Howell scored his first goal of the season on a beautiful play midway through the first and Cameron Schmidt scored on a breakaway a few minutes later, but those first period tallies were the only goals the Giants would score.

Burke Hood made 30 saves in a game where the Americans outshot Vancouver 35-24.

Virk had two of the five Tri-City goals. Garland, Crew Martinson and Jaxon Adam had the other Americans’ tallies.

CLICK FOR THE OFFICIAL WHL BOXSCORE

GAME SUMMARY

Garland opened the scoring just 48 seconds in after getting a puck all alone in front of the net.

Vancouver equalized midway through the first on an incredible play from Howell, who had the puck at the left point and held on long enough to get the forward covering him to commit to a block by dropping down to one knee. Howell then walked around him to the top of the left circle and launched a wrist shot to the top corner to tie the game 1-1.

HOWIE WOWIE 🤩 pic.twitter.com/oBjkOPoR1B

— Vancouver Giants (@WHLGiants) November 8, 2025

A few minutes later, the Giants took their first lead of the night when Aaron Obobaifo sprung Schmidt for yet another breakaway, where he (again) made no mistake, going top corner for his 12th goal of the season.

Beauty breakaway goal from Schmidty 😮‍💨👏 pic.twitter.com/JZ0f1pdqy3

— Vancouver Giants (@WHLGiants) November 8, 2025

Tri-City tied the game in the final minute of the first on a power play.

Virk scored the only goal of the second period when Dale spotted him open at the bottom of the right circle. Virk found the back of the net to make it 3-2 for the Americans.

The insurance marker came midway through the third period when Adam moved in from the right point and spun off a check before beating Hood on the blocker side to give the home side their first two-goal lead of the game.

The Americans added an empty-net goal with less than two seconds left to seal the deal and make it a 5-2 final score.

STATISTICS

SOG: VAN —9/7/8 = 24 | TC – 11/12/12 = 35
PP: VAN—0/2 | TC — 1/3
Face-Offs: VAN — 32 | TC — 29

3 STARS

1st: TC – Savin Virk – 2G, 2A, 2 SOG, +3
2nd: TC – Connor Dale – 4A, 1 SOG, +3
3rd: TC – Gavin Garland – 1G, 1A, 4 SOG, +3

GOALTENDING BATTLE

Vancouver: LOSS – Burke Hood (30 saves / 34 shots)
Tri-City: WIN – Ryan Grout (22 saves / 24 shots)

THEY SAID IT

“We didn’t have the start we wanted, obviously – they got one in the first five minutes. We didn’t really do a great job of adapting to their style of play and playing a different game. It’s a different atmosphere. They play a specific type of game that I think we had a hard time adapting to tonight…[Their style] is kind of ‘flip the puck out’, ‘chuck the puck up’ and hope for the best kind of thing. I think we struggled with getting the puck back and winning battles in the offensive zone.” – Giants Assistant Coach Gaelan Patterson on the game overall

“Just [needed] more speed obviously. We made a few adjustments to our neutral zone regroups to try to get past them and use our speed against them. We’re a rush team. We’re a fast, rush team, but it just kept not going our way and then I think there was a little bit of frustration. And then the way they just kind of suffocate and play that heavy game. They won a lot of battles in the offensive zone. We couldn’t recover pucks quick enough and get them back into a scoring chance.”

CLICK BELOW FOR THE FULL POST-GAME INTERVIEW WITH ASSISTANT COACH GAELAN PATTERSON

UPCOMING

The Giants face the Seattle Thunderbirds on Saturday night and then host the Everett Silvertips on Monday.

Date	Opponent	Time	Location
Monday, November 10	Everett	Langley Events Centre	7:00 PM
Saturday, November 15	Edmonton	Langley Events Centre	7:00 PM

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