Tigers hurt by another slow start

By Ryan McCracken on December 14, 2017.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

The Medicine Hat Tigers fell victim to another slow start on Wednesday night at the Canalta Centre.

Medicine Hat fell into a three-goal deficit after allowing the opening marker for the eighth time in their past nine games, and were unable to claw their way back in an eventual 6-3 loss to the Tri-City Americans.

“We’ve got to be much better when the puck drops. That was a strength earlier on in the year, we were really ready to go and maybe caught some teams not quite there,” said Tigers head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston. “I just expect a little more speed, a little more race, a little more jump. If we can get there, if we can find that and get that back into our game I think things will improve immediately.”

The Tabbies were forced to dig their way out of the early hole after surrendering a power play goal to Michael Rasmussen just over three minutes into the first. The 18-year-old Ams captain earned some empty real estate in front of Tigers goaltender Michael Bullion and redirected a Morgan Geekie pass into the net, then Geekie battled his way into the goal column six minutes later.

The Americans earned the scoring chance off a scramble in the Tigers end after Bullion played the puck behind the goal. While the Hat netminder made a stop on the initial opportunity, Geekie buried one of the ensuing rebounds to double up on Tri-City’s lead.

“We had a good start. We made some good decisions with the puck and got it in and got a lot of forechecking pressure,” said Americans head coach Mike Williamson. “You talk a lot about needing your big players to step up to have success, and I thought all of our leaders were terrific tonight.”

The Tigers picked up a pair of late power plays in the opening frame, but were unable to get anything past Americans goaltender Beck Warm on just five shots in the period.

“It’s tough when we’re consistently climbing back in games,” said Tigers defenceman David Quenneville, who shouldered responsibility for the loss. “I wasn’t good enough and I’m a leader of this team so I’ll take responsibility for that loss tonight. It’s my job to get the boys going and I didn’t do that tonight.”

Isaac Johnson stretched Tri-City’s lead to three in highlight reel fashion two minutes into the second. The 18-year-old Minnesotan cut past Tigers defenceman Linus Nassen with a fancy one-on-one deke then beat Bullion with a bar-down shot for his fifth goal of the season.

But the Tigers answered back in a hurry. Shortly after gaining the Tri-City zone, James Hamblin worked the puck up to the blue line where Quenneville blasted a shot through traffic to put his team on the board.

While the goal seemed to spark something on the Tigers bench, the Americans quickly regained the momentum and Rasmussen broke through in the dying minutes of the second to re-establish a three-goal lead at the break.

While the Tigers narrowed the deficit down to two when Tyler Preziuso cut in on goal with an impressive individual effort and Ryan Chyzowski cleaned up the rebound for his 11th of the year, Geekie responded in kind just 23 seconds later to silence the crowd of 2,842.

Hamblin kept hope for a comeback alive by cutting the gap back to two with just fewer than four minutes left in regulation, but Geekie put the game out of reach by finishing off the hat trick with an empty netter.

“We picked it up in the second and third a bit but I think going into the next game we definitely just need to get a good hop,” said Preziuso, who had two assists in the loss. “Our line started the game and we just didn’t have the jump we wanted to.”

Bullion settled for a 22-save loss, dropping the Tigers to 17-13-2-0 with their third straight setback.Warm collected a 24-save victory and push Tri-City to 16-10-3-0 on the year.

“Beck played very well,” said Williamson. “I thought our D played a simple game for the most part. I thought there was a pretty big push in the second period where we were on our heels and got some big saves.”

Clouston added goaltender Jordan Hollett was out due to illness while forward Hayden Ostir has been sidelined with a broken finger suffered in Friday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Brandon Wheat Kings.

The Tigers return to the Canalta Centre Friday to host the Red Deer Rebels (9-18-4-1) at 7:30 p.m.

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