Anthony Ast got a vote of confidence from GM Scott Bonner Tuesday. (www.vancouvergiants.com)
Vancouver Giants fans might get an idea of how potent Scott Bonner’s powers of persuasion are Wednesday.
The club’s general manager had a meeting with forwards Marek Tvrdon and Anthony Ast before practice Tuesday and told the pair that they needed to “relax and let the game come to them.”
Going off coach Don Hay’s workouts this week, the duo will be linemates, along with team leading scorer Jackson Houck, when the struggling Giants play host to the Brandon Wheat Kings at the Pacific Coliseum Wednesday (7 p.m., Team 1410).
Tvrdon, 19, might be the most talented one-goal scorer in the WHL right now. The Detroit Red Wings prospect tallied 31 times last year. Ast, 17, Vancouver’s first-round pick in the 2010 bantam draft, has just one assist in his six starts this season.
“They’re good players…I told them to ‘just play,’” said Bonner. “They’re holding the stick too tight now, like a lot of our guys. They both want to please.
“They need to quietly play their game and things will take care of themselves.”
Bonner says that he usually only meets with players over trades or discipline matters. That said, the Giants aren’t usually at the bottom of 22-team WHL, like they are now with their 2-8-0-0 record. They carry a four-game losing streak up against the Wheat Kings.
“It was a casual,’We still have faith in you,’ meeting,” said Bonner. “It was all of about three minutes and ‘now go and enjoy yourselves.’
“If the guys start having some fun, it’ll help. The best teams around here were relaxed.”
Hay, who doesn’t like to give any hints to the opposition, said Tuesday that he wasn’t sure of his line-up for Wednesday. Tanner Moar, a winger who skated with the defencemen on Monday, was back up front, giving Hay three extra forwards and one surplus defenceman to choose from.
Ast had centred Moar and Tristan Sieben for much of Saturday’s 5-4 loss to the Calgary Hitmen, while Tvrdon was teaming with Dalton Sward to flank Nathan Burns.
Goalie Payton Lee, a call-up from Junior B, did skate with the team again and could get the call in front of regular netminders Liam Liston and Tyler Fuhr, who are both former Wheat Kings products.
Brandon, meanwhile, carried a 6-5-1-0 mark into a Tuesday visit to the Victoria Royals. Tonight marks the third game of a five-contest swing through B.C. for the Wheat Kings, who are led by hard-shooting defenceman Ryan Pulock, 18, a projected top-10 pick for the 2013 NHL entry draft.
