NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Mads Søgaard leaves his crease to play the puck with Brandon Wheat Kings winger Ben McCartney bearing down during a Western Hockey League game at the Canalta Centre on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
The Medicine Hat Tigers were held out of the goal column for the first time in nearly two months on Tuesday night at the Canalta Centre.
Tabby goaltender Mads Søgaard did all he could to hold his team in the contest, but the offence was unable to reward his 26-save effort in a 4-0 loss to the Brandon Wheat Kings.
“It’s plain and simple. They were ready to go and we weren’t,” said Tigers assistant coach Ryan Smith. “We got beat by the better team tonight. They were excellent. Their speed was something we haven’t seen. We’re used to going the other way at a pace. Their top guys were outstanding tonight.”
Wheat Kings goaltender Ethan Kruger stopped 32 shots to secure the shutout – which serves as Medicine Hat’s second goalless night of the season after falling 2-0 to the Calgary Hitmen on Sept. 29.
“It was a whole team effort tonight,” said Kruger. “It was a pretty easy night for me, I thought, getting a shutout for the team. The guys were putting their bodies in front of the puck and doing what it takes to win.”
Søgaard was the early star, turning away nine pucks in the first period to keep his Tigers in a scoreless contest through 20 minutes despite registering just five shots on Kruger.
Brandon finally broke through Søgaard’s defences just shy of the game’s halfway point, but it still didn’t come easily. Forward Lynden McCallum broke in all alone only to be stopped by Søgaard’s paddle, but the save left the 6-foot-7 Dane stranded and Ridley Greig easily deposited the rebound to give the Wheaties a 1-0 lead.
“Mads was unreal,” said Tigers defenceman Trevor Longo. “The past two games he’s been unreal. I think there could have been easily six, seven, eight goals. They had a lot of Grade-A chances that we shouldn’t have given up but he stood on his head again.”
Wheat Kings blueliner Neithan Salame broke the game open five minutes later when he split the Tigers defence and beat Søgaard on a breakaway with a delayed penalty incoming. The highlight reel tally was only his second goal of the year.
“He always dekes in practice and works on those moves,” Kruger said of Salame. “I’m glad it finally paid off.”
The Wheaties earned a chance to stretch the lead even further when Daniel Baker was nabbed for interference early in the third period and Luka Burzan converted in just 21 seconds to leave the Tigers buried in a 3-0 deficit.
Medicine Hat pressured for a way to ignite their offence, but Connor Gutenberg struck for another power goal late in the third with Eric Van Impe in the box for interference.
“It wasn’t good enough,” said Tigers captain James Hamblin, who had a five-game point streak snapped in the loss. “It’s our effort that wasn’t there and you don’t want to see that. We’ve got to change something there, get better and get ready for the weekend.”
The win pushes Brandon to 11-13-0-0, while Medicine Hat fell to 14-7-1-0.
The Tigers return to the Canalta Centre Friday to host the Moose Jaw Warriors (9-9-1-0) at 7:30 p.m.
