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“He’s a guy who can win a game by himself. He’s a guy who can explode for four or five points in a night.

“If you’re going to play pro, he’s the type of guy you are going to play against every single night. It’s awesome. Hopefully I can get out there against him and see how I can do.”

Giants coach Jason McKee has similar thoughts on Lind. He thinks that Lind, 19, and Kelowna centre Dillon Dube, 19, are two of the benchmark players in the WHL this season.

Lind and Dube, a second-round draft pick by the Calgary Flames two summers ago, are candidates to play for Team Canada at the upcoming world junior tournament.

“He’s a complete guy and a lot of their offence is going to run through him and Dube,” McKee said of Lind, a 6-foot-1, 185 pounder whose 87-point campaign last season with the Rockets included 14 points in eight games versus Vancouver.

“He’s got a great shot, he finds open space, he knows how to create offence in this league.

“Both of those guys are very competitive guys. I think that’s where it always starts. You can be the most skilled guy in the world but you also have to be competitive. If we’re talking about Lind in particular, you see it on his face, you see it on his reactions on the ice. You want a team that represents that and we’ve got some young guys who can hopefully grow into a player like that. He’s an elite guy in our league.”

Photo by Marissa Baecker / PNG

On the positive side for the Giants, 20-year-old defenceman Darian Skeoch is eligible to return to the line-up Friday after missing the past four games with a suspension from the WHL head office for what was deemed as a check to the head on Prince George Cougars winger Jackson Leppard in a 2-1 Vancouver loss on home on Oct. 27. Skeoch didn’t receive a penalty on the play.

Leppard left the game against the Giants and missed the next two Cougar contests with an undisclosed injury.

Skeoch is the Giants’ top defensive rearguard.

His usual partner, Bowen Byram, won’t be in the Vancouver line-up Friday. He’s taking part in the Under-17 world challenge in Fort St. John and Dawson Creek. The 16-year-old rookie will miss also Vancouver home games on Saturday (7 p.m., TSN 1410) against the Victoria Royals and Sunday (4 p.m., TSN 1410) versus the Edmonton Oil Kings before returning to the team next week.