Friday night Victoria will unveil their first ever 3rd Jersey, while Saturday is the annual Pink in the Rink fundraiser night.
Pregame show on The Zone @ 91.3 fm at 6:40 both nights, www.thezone.fm/whl
It’s the third meeting of the season, with the Giants winning both encounters so far in Vancouver by 3-1 and 5-3 scores.
The Royals have a 1 point lead over the Giants in the standings (13 to 12), and are 4th and 5th in the BC Division respectively.
Victoria is on a two game win streak after a 6 game in 9 night Central division road swing, winning 4 of 6 games. They only allowed 5 goals against in their last 3 outings.
Royals top point getters on the road:
- Carroll – 9 pts (4g, 5a)
- Hicketts – 8 pts (1g, 7a)
- Soy – 6 pts (3g, 3a)
- Walker – 6 pts (3g, 3a)
- Blomqvist – 5 pts (4g, 1a)
- Brown – 4 pts (1g, 3a)
They wrapped the trek up with a 4-0 shut out victory over Kootenay last Saturday as Brandon Magee made his return from suspension had 2 assists, as did Royals leading scorer, Austin Carroll. Coleman Vollrath made 27 saves for his 2nd career shut out.
Getting the goals were Travis Brown, Logan Fisher, Axel Blomqvist, and Brandon Fushimi.
Vancouver had their two game win streak snapped in Kamloops Wednesday, falling 7-2. Payton Lee took the loss allowing 3 goals on 18 shots. Lee was nominated for CHL goaltender of the week.
The Giants come into Friday’s game with the 5th best power play percentage, and have scored the 5th most goals per game on average (4.00), while taking the 4th most shots on average.
Vancouver looks for their first road win of the season (0-4), while Victoria is 2-1-1-0 on home ice this year.
The Royals power play has improved to 9th best in the league and have now scored the 8th most goals for on average per game, up from 20th spot before the 6th game road trip.
Wednesday, the Royals acquired goaltender Jayden Sittler (1996) from the Kootenay Ice in exchange for a sixth round draft pick in the 2015 WHL Bantam Draft. His father’s cousin is the famed Darryl Sittler.
The 6-0, 184 lb netminder Sittler was brought in as a result of netminder Evan Smith being injured at practice.
According to GM Cam Hope, “A good positional goalie, he battles…”
Sittler joins the Royals after starting the 2014-15 season with the Fort McMurray Oil Barons of the AJHL. In four games for the Oil Barons, he posted a 2-2-0 record with a goals against average (GAA) of 3.04 and a 0.903 save percentage (SV%).
“He’s a know entity on what kind of guy he is. A little unknown, in terms of what kind of goaltender he is except for his statistics – but we like what we’ve seen.” Continued Hope
The native of Red Deer, AB played in one game for the Ice last season, making 17 saves in a victory.
Sittler was part of the Chiefs team that captured the Telus Cup along with current Royal Logan Fisher.
The WHL announced Tuesday that Victoria defenceman Joe Hicketts has been named the Denny’s WHL Player of the week. Last Thursday he was named to the roster for Team WHL in the upcoming Subway Super Series.
Hicketts who wears the ‘C’, recorded seven points (1g-6a) over the Royals’ four games last week to go along with four penalty minutes and a plus-5 rating on his way to the Player of the Week honour. He becomes the second player in Victoria team history to receive the award (Alex Gogolev, 2012-2013).
Hicketts was tied for first in league scoring among defencemen after last weekend, with 4 goals and 11 assists in 11 games played.
Saturday’s contest vs. the Giants marks the Royals’ fourth annual Pink in the Rink Night at SOFMC. Victoria holds a record of 2-1-0-0 on PITR Night including last year’s overtime victory against Vancouver.
- Marlon Martens
Victoria Royals vs Vancouver Giants: Head To Head Stats Summary
How the 2 teams match up
Description
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Result
| |
| Head to Head Record 2014-15 Regular Season | Victoria 0-2-0-0 | Vancouver 2-0-0-0 |
| Head to Head Record 2013-14 Regular Season | Victoria 5-4-0-1 | Vancouver 5-4-1-0 |
| Last 5 Years record between teams | Victoria 20-20-1-1 | Vancouver 22-19-1-0 |
| Victoria vs. Vancouver Last 5 Years record at Victoria | Victoria 12-7-0-1 | Vancouver 8-11-1-0 |
| Victoria vs. Vancouver Last 5 Years record at Vancouver | Victoria 8-13-1-0 | Vancouver 14-8-0-0 |
| Previous Meetings This Season | Victoria 3 @ Vancouver 5 (Sep 28 2014) Final Victoria 1 @ Vancouver 3 (Sep 20 2014) Final |
How the 2 teams match up
Vancouver
|
Victoria
| |
| Team Record | 6-5-0-0 -- 12 points | 6-6-1-0 -- 13 points |
| Division Ranking | 5th B.C. | 4th B.C. |
| Conference Ranking | 8th Western | 7th Western |
| League Ranking | 14th | 13th |
| Past 10 Games | 5-5-0-0 | 6-3-1-0 |
| Streak | 0-1-0-0 | 2-0-0-0 |
| Last Game | 7-2 L @ Kamloops (Oct 22 2014) Final | 4-0 W @ Kootenay (Oct 18 2014) Final |
| Home Record | 6-1-0-0 | 2-1-1-0 |
| Away Record | 0-4-0-0 | 4-5-0-0 |
| GF | 44 | 41 |
| GA | 32 | 49 |
| PP (Overall) | (13/54) 24.1 | (14/71) 19.7 |
| PP (Home) | (9/28) 32.1 | (4/20) 20.0 |
| PP (Away) | (4/26) 15.4 | (10/51) 19.6 |
| PK (Overall) | (13/55) 76.4 | (14/65) 78.5 |
| PK (Home) | (6/33) 81.8 | (4/16) 75.0 |
| PK (Away) | (7/22) 68.2 | (10/49) 79.6 |
| Leading Rookie | Benson (3-7-10) | Hannoun (1-2-3) |
| Most PIM | Atwal - 22 | Crunk - 36 |
| Team PIM/GM | 17.7/Game | 19.0/Game |
| Leading Scorers | Hamilton (4-10-14) | Carroll (8-8-16) |
| Popoff (7-6-13) | Hicketts (4-11-15) | |
| Foster (6-7-13) | Walker (5-7-12) | |
| Houck (5-8-13) | Soy (4-7-11) | |
| Benson (3-7-10) | Brown (3-7-10) | |
| Last 5 Games | 7-2 L @ Kamloops (Oct 22 2014) Final | 4-0 W @ Kootenay (Oct 18 2014) Final |
| 9-1 W vs Prince George (Oct 18 2014) Final | 4-2 W @ Lethbridge (Oct 17 2014) Final | |
| 3-0 W vs Kamloops (Oct 17 2014) Final | 3-2 L @ Edmonton (Oct 15 2014) Final | |
| 2-1 L @ Prince George (Oct 11 2014) Final | 6-5 W @ Red Deer (Oct 14 2014) Final OT | |
| 2-1 L @ Prince George (Oct 10 2014) Final | 8-2 L @ Medicine Hat (Oct 11 2014) Final | |
| Leading After 1st | 2-2-0-0 | 3-1-0-0 |
| Leading After 2nd | 4-1-0-0 | 2-1-0-0 |
| Tied After 1st | 3-2-0-0 | 1-0-0-0 |
| Tied After 2nd | 1-1-0-0 | 2-0-0-0 |
| Trailing After 1st | 1-1-0-0 | 2-5-1-0 |
| Trailing After 2nd | 1-3-0-0 | 2-5-1-0 |
| Out Shooting Opponents | 6-1-0-0 | 4-1-1-0 |
| Out Shot by Opponents | 0-2-0-0 | 2-5-0-0 |
| 1-Goal Games | 0-3-0-0 | 3-1-1-0 |
| 2-Goal Games | 3-1-0-0 | 1-2-0-0 |
| 3-Goal Games | 1-0-0-0 | 0-1-0-0 |
