NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers net minder Evan May slides to his right to make a save in the first period of the Tigers 6-4 loss Friday night at Co-op Place against the Red Deer Rebels.
There was only so much Evan May could do to keep the Tigers afloat Friday night.
The Nanaimo, B.C. product made 44 saves as the Tigers ultimately fell 6-4 to the Red Deer Rebels at Co-op Place.
Associate coach Joe Frazer commended the net minder and said the team in front of him wasn’t enough.
“Evan was really good in net, he kept us in the game and gave us a chance.
“Defensively we weren’t getting our exits quick enough, we weren’t working back as a group of five, breaking out as group five,” Frazer said. “Which meant when we were on our forecheck we weren’t connected, which led to them breaking the puck out quick which led the puck in our zone a lot. So tomorrow night, we have to be way better with the group of five connected.”
The Tigers will face-off against the Kelowna Rockets on Saturday for their finals game before the holiday break. May says getting another game immediately after that kind of loss is good for the Tigers to end on a high note.
“Personally I have a little more to give, their go-ahead goal I should have had,” May said. “But I think the whole team has a little bit more and good thing we have Kelowna tomorrow, so we can bounce back and have a big one.”
Red Deer opened the scoring Friday night with a power play goal from Hunter Mayo 7:59 into the game. The Tigers answered back with 2:31 left in the opening period with a top shelf shot from Cayden Lindstrom fro his eighth goal of the year. Andrew Basha had the lone assist.
Once again the Rebels were the first ones on the board, Jace Isley scored on a short handed 2-0n-1 breakaway when he slammed home a pass from Jayden Grubbee, Mark Schneider also had an assist.
The Tigers scored on the same power play to set the game at 2-2. Oasiz Wiesblatt carried the puck into the Red Deer end and beat Rhett Stoesser to the post with a wrap around goal. Reid Andresen had the assist on Wiesblatt’s 14th of the year. Medicine Hat took the lead over six minutes later when Tyler MacKenzie picked up a pass from Lindstrom and wired a shot from the slot for his 11th goal of the season. Dallon Melin had the second assist.
The Rebels were outshooting the Tigers 34-14 through 40 minutes of play with Medicine Hat ahead 3-2.
After a disallowed goal on a high stick Red Deer tied it up at 3-3 6:54 into the third with Kai Uchacz’s 23rd goal of the year, extending his point streak to 10 games. At the 14:17 mark the Tigers jumped back ahead with a breakaway goal from Brayden Boehm. Pasha Bocharov and Shane Smith had the assists on Boehm’s 13th.
Boehm said the Tigers cheated a bit for offence in the third period and credited May for keeping them in the game and turning aside a late penalty shot chance from Craig Armstrong.
“With all those chances, the penalty shot was a huge stop for us but I think we let him down with too many outnumbered rushes and we didn’t play a good enough game in front of him to give ourselves a chance,” Boehm said.
In a span of five minutes the Rebels scored three goals with Frantisek Formanek tying the game up 35 second after Boehm’s goal before Isley potted his second of the night 1:47 later for the lead. Armstrong scored on the empty net with 19 seconds left to secure the 6-4 win for the Rebels. Stoesser turned aside 20 of the 24 Tigers shots he faced in the victory.
The loss drops the Tigers record to 12-17-4-1 but they still remain in 8th place in the Eastern Conference standings.
