Tigers drop road contest in Lethbridge

By MEDICINE HAT WILD on December 18, 2021.

It was a classic Highway 3 rivalry game Friday night.

The Medicine Hat Tigers were on the road in Lethbridge and lost 6-4 to the Hurricanes in first game of a home-and-home series with their division rival.

Despite being on an early penalty, the Tigers jumped out in front 50 seconds into the game on Lukas Svejkovsky’s 12th of the year.

After Svejkovsky’s shorthanded goal, Medicine Hat quickly added to their lead with a Reid Andresen tally at the 3:27 mark. Andresen’s second of the year was assisted by Owen MacNeil, for his second point in three games.

Lethbridge answered back 10 minutes later on the man advantage to bring them within one. Justin Hall’s 11th of the season came at the 15:27 mark of the first frame. Despite the 2-1 Tigers lead, the Hurricanes outshot the Tabbies 18-7.

Medicine Hat’s early lead fully dissipated in the second as the Hurricanes notched two goals in the first 10 minutes of the frame.

Logan Barlage scored his fifth of the season less than four minutes into the frame and Ty Nash added his eighth of the campaign on the man advantage to put Lethbridge ahead 3-2.

Not wanting the game to get away from them, the Tigers tied it up on Oren Shtrom’s sixth of the year less than a minute after Nash’s goal. Carlin Dezainde and Gleb Ivanov picked up the helpers on Shtrom’s third in his last two games.

The second period almost ended in a tie before Lethbridge’s Jett Jones knocked in his seventh of the year to re-establish the Hurricane lead. In a complete reversal of the first, Medicine Hat outshot the Hurricanes 12-6 in the frame but were behind 4-3 on the scoreboard.

The story of the contest was success with the man advantage. The Hurricanes scored three on six power plays to the Tigers only capitalizing on one of their four advantages.

Over 12 minutes of the third period would pass by without any offence, as both the Tigers and Hurricanes traded chances as time wound down.

Lethbridge added to their lead with Hall’s second goal of the game at the 12:36 mark. That power play goal, assisted by Logan Wormald, was the 20-year-old’s 100th WHL point in his 151st game in a Hurricanes jersey.

The Hurricanes were not done as Noah Boyko rifled a shot from the high slot past Tigers netminder Beckett Langkow to give Lethbridge a three-goal lead with less than three minutes in the contest.

Brayden Boehm made it interesting late with his third of the year that snuck through Lethbridge netminder Jared Picklyk’s arm with 1:36 left.

The Tigers made a late push with Langkow on the bench for the extra attacker but it would be too little too late as they could not make the full comeback and lost 6-4.

Langkow stopped 26 of the 32 shots he faced in his ninth start of the season for the Tigers.

Across the ice, Picklyk turned aside 20 of the 24 Tigers shots he faced in his fourth start of the year.

Both the Tigers (5-17-3-1) and Hurricanes (11-11-2-0) have one more game against to finish up their home-and-home series before they wrap up their schedule for the Christmas break. That contest gets underway Saturday night at 7 p.m. at Co-op Place.

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