Tigers fall in overtime, lose third straight

By Ryan McCracken on January 22, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

The Medicine Hat Tigers were forced to settle for a single point Saturday night at the Canalta Centre.

Prince Albert Raiders defenceman Vojtech Budik scored exactly one minute into overtime to hand the Tigers their third consecutive loss in a 3-2 nailbiter.

“It’s frustrating losing in overtime but I thought we played a good game. I thought we generated enough chances and we had enough power plays — we had six power play opportunities — so we spent enough time in their zone,” said Tigers head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston. “We just need to find a way to get one to go in.”

While the Tigers and Raiders traded a handful of chances and a pair of power plays in the opening frame, it wasn’t until midway through the second that Mark Rassell finally broke the stalemate.

The overage captain danced his way around Raiders goaltender Ian Scott and threaded the puck across the line from behind the net to bring the crowd of 3,475 to their feet with his 39th of the year.

But the Raiders answered back in a hurry. Less than two minutes after Rassell’s marker, Jordy Stallard won an offensive zone draw to himself and fed the puck to Curtis Miske who beat Bullion on the ensuing chance to draw even.

Raiders winger Regan Nagy stole away the lead in the dying minutes of the second with Kristians Rubins in the box for interference, but the Tigers came roaring back in the third.

Hat rookie Josh Williams erased the deficit just over two minutes into the final frame when Scott bobbled a sharp-angle shot from Henry Rybinski and left a juicy rebound in the blue paint. The marker snapped a nine-game goalless drought for Williams, who returned from a broken collarbone on Jan. 5.

“It was a good play by Rybinski getting the puck in front and I was just lucky enough to bang in the rebound,” said Williams.

The Tigers looked poised to take the lead back on an extended 5-on-3 late in the third, but they were unable to put another puck past Scott and headed to overtime for the third time in the past four games — where Budik dashed their hopes at a comeback with his seventh goal of the season.

“We knew these Tigers were fast and we just had to keep up with how fast they were and get pucks deep,” said Stallard, who assisted on the overtime winner. “We’ve been playing really well lately. We’ve been playing 60-minute hockey and that’s what we need to do every night.”

Rassell added Prince Albert’s neutral zone trap has been difficult to play against this season, but a better 60-minute effort likely would have brought about a different result.

“It’s always tough when they’ve got four guys back. You feel like you have a lot of time but as soon as you make a play there’s a guy on top of you. It’s a hard system to play against. It’s not fun hockey but they do it pretty well and it seems to work for them,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you’ve got to play a full 60 — you can’t give up early.”

Bullion settled for the loss on 24 stops, dropping Medicine Hat to 24-18-5-0 on the season. Scott held on for the 33-save victory to push Prince Albert to 18-20-6-2.

The Tigers hit the road to Red Deer Tuesday to face the Rebels (10-25-8-3) at 7 p.m.

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