Looks like Sourdif was credited with the secondary assist on Giants lone goal.
Seems they're in a bit of a funk right now? 3 losses in a row. Long regular season.
You're right. It was a different PA announcer than normal tonight and I couldn't hear him very well (the arena sound system isn't great) but it didn't sound like Sourdif was credited on the goal. So either I misheard or they made a scoring change after the announcement. My bad.
As for the team being in a funk I think it's mostly that they've just played the last 3 games against 2 strong teams. The combined record of Everett and Kamloops is 26-2-0-1 on the season, with both teams leading their respective divisions and comfortably sitting 1 and 2 in the Western Conference and are 1st and 3rd in the whole league in winning % (in between them is Winnipeg, who have
way more points but have also played like 7 more games than either team).
The game last friday yeah the Giants got the doors blown off in Kamloops, losing 6-1, but the game against them the next day in Langley was a hard fought 2-1 affair. And while last night's game wasn't close in terms of play (Everett looked like the faster, more skilled team for practically the whole game outside of a stretch in the 2nd period) they did at least keep it 2-1 until the last few minutes of the 3rd period and kept the shot totals to a respectable 25-19 margin while playing without one of their better defencemen for some reason and still without one of their top 6 wingers who's missed the entire season so far recovering from (I think) shoulder surgery.
Sourdif personally also takes a bit of a hit in potential productivity because the lines have been shuffled up a little and he no longer plays with Lysell except on the power play. And though Lysell's stats don't jump off the page for a guy with 1st round NHL draft pedigree (just 3 goals in 13 games), his speed, aggressiveness, and potential for game-breaking plays definitely opens up space for Sourdif to operate and gives the D someone to think about besides him. Last night he centered Adam Hall (an NHL-undrafted over-age forward whose 8 goals this season are exactly half of his 4-year career WHL total) and Payton Mount (an NHL-undrafted 19-year old who looks like a WHL-level bust since he was once the 8th overall pick in his WHL bantam draft but has turned into a career 0.5 PPG player whose career high is just 15 goals.)
NHL potential talents playing with guys that have no high level pro future is, of course, nothing new at the major junior level. Most teams are lucky to have maybe 2 or 3 guys with legit NHL aspirations on their roster at any given time. And truthfully the league is full of talented players for this level who can be difference makers for their junior club without ever having any real expectations of NHL upside (I'm reminded of a guy my Sharks signed out of the WHL: Jayden Halbgewachs. Besides the awesomely unpronounceable name he brings to the table he's been a decent AHL forward at best, twice notching 35 points in 55-65 games, but he was an absolute dynamo in the WHL. His last two seasons produced 50 and
70 goals respectively. And no, that's not a typo. He was never drafted by an NHL club. Though obviously him being generously listed at 5'8, 160 lbs probably has something to do with that. Same thing happened to a former Giant, Ty Ronning (son of NHLer Cliff Ronning). He put up 31 goals, then 25, then a team-record 61 (topping former record holder Evander Kane), in the middle of that was a 7th round draft pick of the Rangers, and after spending his first two post-WHL seasons logging significant games in the
ECHL he is only now finding regular AHL minutes for the first time in last year's pandemic-shortened season and now this year.
Point is that it's a big step down for Sourdif to be flanked by a guy who was never good until he was basically a man in a boys' league and another guy who's never delivered on lofty expectations considering he started the year on a line entirely made up of 2021 NHL draftees, centering 1st rounder Lysell and Ottawa 2nd rounder Zack Ostapchuk.
sorry, I kind of turned that into a meandering essay that is mostly irrelevant to you guys.
tl;dr - Last night mostly sucked, but Sourdif is fine and continues to look OK to great depending on how the rest of the team goes. We'll see how tonight's game turns out because Victoria is the anti-Everett: they have a whopping
ONE win on the season, are comfortably in the league basement, and have basically been outscored by a >2:1 margin on the year. I'm hoping for a slaughter and 4 points from Sourdif. Though I've now probably jinxed it and the Giants will lose 2-0 with Sourdif getting benched after telling the coach to 'f*** off'
