NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Oasiz Wiesblatt carries the puck out of the defensive end in the first period of their 4-2 loss Sunday afternoon against the Prince Albert Raiders at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com
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A four goal, 10-minute stretch in the second period Sunday sealed the Medicine Hat Tigers fate.
The Tigers scored first in the period before ultimately losing 4-2 against the Prince Albert Raiders at Co-op Place. Medicine Hat came into the contest off a 5-2 loss to the Calgary Hitmen on Saturday. Sunday wrapped up a three game, three day stretch where the Tigers went 1-2 and a four-in-five run seeing Medicine Hat win two of four.
Tigers associate coach Joe Frazer said they were too aggressive offensively and it cost them.
“We weren’t getting above the puck, making it hard on them,” Frazer said. “We were hoping somebody else would create a turnover and we’d be on the offensive side of the puck. We have to make sure we’re racing back as a group of five. It always starts in the offensive zone getting above the puck and we just didn’t do that.”
The Tigers have lost all three matchups with the Raiders this season. Frazer says Prince Albert is good in the neutral zone and makes their transition game hard.
“They have big, hard defencemen in front of the net and we haven’t had a lot of success getting to the net and getting tip ins and rebounds,” Frazer said. “They had two tips tonight, so they’ve definitely won the net front battles in all three games.”
Medicine Hat opened the scoring Sunday with a second period power play goal from Oasiz Wiesblatt. Bogdans Hodass and Brendan Lee had the assists on Wiesblatt’s 10th of the season. The two teams traded chances before the Raiders rattled off four straight goals to take their lead.
Cole Peardon scored his second of the season a little over seven minutes after Wiesblatt’s goal to tie the game up at 1-1. While on a power play after a scrum in the Raiders end, Prince Albert’s Sloan Stanick scored on the man advantage for the lead. Only 3:22 later, Evan Herman scored his sixth of the year and with 25 seconds left in the period Stanick scored his second to put them up 4-1.
“(It’s) just being disciplined,” Wiesblatt said as his takeaway from the loss. “That was our key focus for all those four games and I thought we were pretty good and then sometimes we just lost it. We have to be more disciplined and that includes myself.”
The Tigers pushed in the third period and cut the Raiders lead in half with Dallon Melin’s fifth goal of the campaign at the 12:16 mark. They maintained control of the puck and had multiple chances with the goalie pulled but could not get another puck past Tikhon Chaika who had 20 saves in the Raiders 4-2 win.
Across the ice from Chaika, Tigers net minder Beckett Langkow made 24 saves.
Melin says they need the reset of the week and to keep their game going and success will come.
“We’ve been playing a lot of hockey lately, it’s gonna be good to get a full week of practice in and maybe get sharpened up on a few things. We need to get back to when we’re winning we’re disciplined and that’s the biggest thing we have to stay out of the box,” Melin said.
The Tigers (8-11-4-1) aren’t in action again until Friday when they hit the road to Calgary before hosting the Saskatoon Blades Saturday for the annual Medicine Hat News Teddy Bear toss game.
