Cubs stymied through home-and-home set with Wheatland Kings

By Ryan McCracken on October 29, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

The effort was there, but the results eluded the Medicine Hat Travelodge Cubs through their home-and-home set with the Strathmore Wheatland Kings this weekend.

The Cubs fell 3-2 on the road Saturday and 5-2 Sunday at home to slip to 4-6-2 on the Heritage Junior Hockey League season after collecting six points last weekend, but captain Quinten Karg says they won’t be hanging their heads for too long.

“The effort was good,” said Karg, whose Cubs outshot Strathmore 48-33 Sunday and 34-27 Saturday. “Winning three games last weekend was big. Coming into this weekend, I don’t think we played bad but obviously we didn’t get the results we wanted.”

The Cubs nearly managed to erase a late two-goal deficit Saturday when Chandler Aleman scored with five minutes left to bring Medicine Hat within one shot of overtime, but Strathmore escaped to victory before taking a more comfortable win away from home Sunday.

“It was peaks and valleys for us,”said Cubs head coach JD Gaetan. “We get a little bit of momentum and then lose it because of penalties or whatever. We just need to find that consistency to compete.”

Cubs forward Mackenzie Fritzler erased Hayden Vander’s opening goal Saturday but Adrian Kusu and Robert Butterwick responded for Strathmore to push the game out of reach.

The Wheatland Kings picked things back up by capitalizing on numerous counterattacks to build up a 5-0 lead early in the third.

Medicine Hat responded with a pair of late goals from Jack Hilworth, but it was too late to put any real pressure on Strathmore.

“We definitely outplayed them (Saturday), and today it was breakdowns,” said Karg. “They scored on all 2-on-1s, but other than that we outplayed them and put up almost 50 shots.”

Vanderveer stopped 28 in Sunday’s loss after a 24-save performance Saturday.

Strathmore’s Brett William collected a 32-save win Saturday before stopping 46 Sunday.

“It’s tough putting up close to 50 shots and losing,” said Gaetan. “We just need to win a couple more shifts and get a save at the right time and I think we’ll be all right. We’ve just got to move forward though.”

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