Hollett backs Tigers to season-opening win

By Ryan McCracken on September 22, 2018.

Dale Woodard

Lethbridge Heraldsports@lethbridgeherald.com

It was the Lethbridge Hurricanes home opener, but it was the Medicine Hat Tigers that left with that extra-special feeling.

The Tigers downed the ‘Canes 5-2 in Western Hockey League season-opening action Friday night at the Enmax Centre.

Medicine Hat opened the scoring with shorthanded marker from Ryan Jevne 1:35 into the game, added two more power play goals and sniped another shorty for good measure to spoil the Hurricanes home opener on a night when the team hosted an emotional pregame ceremony and puck drop for injured Hurricane Ryan Vandervlis.

Meanwhile, Tigers goaltender Jordan Hollett kicked out 33 of 35 shots as the Canes outshot the Tigers 35-28.

“We weren’t very good,” said Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio. “If you look at Medicine Hat, they came to compete and they played hard. They had a lot of guys going and they were much better than we were tonight.”

The ‘Canes got the first man advantage of the game, but the Tigers got the first goal as Jevne stripped Logan Barlage of the puck and sent a shot glove side past Hurricanes goaltender Reece Klassen for a 1-0 lead 1:35 into the game.

The Tigers special teams went back to work late in the first and handed them a 2-0 lead as Elijah Brown scored on the man advantage with six minutes left in the opening period with Canes defenceman Matthew Stanley off for roughing.

After the teams skated through a scoreless second period the Hurricanes were handed a prime chance to get their first goal of the night when Dawson Heathcote was given five minutes for fighting and a game misconduct after punching Canes defenceman Calen Addison in the Tigers crease.

The Hurricanes finally found a way past Hollett as Jordy Bellerive took a feed from Taylor Ross and sifted home his first of the season 10:30 into the third.

The special teams theme continued and Lethbridge cut the lead to one when Addison’s seeing-eye shot snaked through traffic and past Hollett to cut the lead to one and get the home opening crowd of 5,232 buzzing fans.

But Tigers snubbed any hopes of a Hurricanes comeback as Tyler Preziuso added Medcine Hat’s second shorthanded goal of the game with 3:06 remaining before James Hamblin added an empty-netter in the final seconds.

The Hurricanes went 2-for-8 on the man advantage, while the Tigers were 2-for-4

“Obviously that’s way too many penalties for us to take, ” said Jevne, who added an assist and went plus-two on the night. “It’s one of those games where emotions run high and you kind of lose your discipline. But it’s good to see this early that we can kill that many penalties and get a couple shorties. For our confidence, that’s good.”

The Tigers outshot the ‘Canes 10-5 in the third period, but Lethbridge held a 30-18 shot advantage after two frames, but Hollett kept the hosts off the scoresheet.

“Whenever they get that many shots you have to rely on your goaltender to make some saves and he obviously did that tonight,” said Jevne. “Our defence has to be there to pick up sticks, get the rebounds and get the puck out. For the first game it wasn’t necessarily as perfect as we want, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Bellerive said the home opener wasn’t a good effort, but noted the abundance of shots.

“I think we obviously didn’t play a very good game at all,” said Bellerive. “We had (almost) 40 shots, so I think that’s a pretty good sign for us if we’re playing a terrible game and we get 40 shots. I think we need to build off of that, bear down on our chances and we’ll be OK.”

The teams wrap up the home-and-home series tonight in Medicine Hat.

“We’re going to have to be better,” said Kisio. “They’re going to be excited to be back in their rink and obviously we weren’t excited enough tonight. We have a big task at hand and we’re going to have to be a lot better hockey team tomorrow.”

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