Own goal costs Tigers in loss to Rockets

By Ryan McCracken on December 17, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

The Medicine Hat Tigers will be left wanting more over the holiday break after a 2-1 loss to the Kelowna Rockets on Saturday night at the Canalta Centre.

Rockets winger Leif Mattson was credited with a pair of goals and goaltender Roman Basran stopped 31 to put an end to Medicine Hat’s four-game winning streak on an odd night full of ugly bounces.

“I just didn’t think we had quite enough energy from start-to-finish from enough guys,” said Tigers head coachShaun Clouston. “It was a bit of a struggle. We didn’t push, we didn’t play hard, it just felt hard. For a while now the energy has been really good and positive, and it felt a little bit hard tonight. Hopefully we enjoy the break, the guys can kind of rest up and get excited for the second half. We’ve had a good stretch here, tonight would have been really big but you can’t change it now.”

Medicine Hat took control of the early pace but the Rockets found the board first on a freebie midway through the opening frame. Mattson was credited for his 15th goal of the season, however it was Tigers winger Bryan Lockner who put the puck into his own net after Jordan Hollett left the crease on a delayed penalty to Nolan Foote. Facing pressure in the neutral zone, Lockner sent the puck back into his own end only to watch it glide into the open cage and give Kelowna an edge at the break.

“It wasn’t great, that’s for sure,” said Shaun Clouston. “In a game like this that ended up being low-scoring it was obviously very costly. I thought we played well for stretches. I don’t think we let it demoralize us, we just weren’t able to score.”

The narrow lead stood until Mattson added a more traditional goal on a power play midway through the second —crashing the net and redirecting a feed from Kyle Topping past Hollett with Dylan MacPherson in the box for interference.

“It was tough,” said Tigers captain James Hamblin. “I didn’t think our effort was fully there, which was really disappointing, especially in our last game. We were still in it, we still had an opportunity to win. It was a tough break with the first one but we still had a chance.”

Medicine Hat laid the offence on thick in the third period and Hamblin broke through to split the deficit in half when he beat Basran from the slot with six minutes left in regulation, but the Rocket netminder held on in the dying minutes to secure the narrow victory and push Kelowna to 16-17-2-0.

“(Basran) really shut the door for us. He did a phenomenal job,” said Rockets defenceman Dalton Gally, who was traded from Medicine Hat to Kelowna in October. “The guys grouped together. We really said, ‘This is our last game before the break so let’s give it everything we have.'”

Hollett settled for an 18-save loss, dropping Medicine Hat to 17-15-1-2.

The Tigers return to the Canalta Centre on Dec. 28 to host the Kootenay Ice (8-22-5-1) at 7:30 p.m.

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