NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Evan May raises his arms to embrace forwards Oasiz Wiesblatt and Hunter St. Martin after beating the Winnipeg Ice 6-4 Wednesday night at Co-op Place.
In a span of five days the Medicine Hat Tigers have snapped two teams 11-game winning streaks.
With a 6-4 win Wednesday night at Co-op Place, the Tigers put an end to the Winnipeg Ice’s winning streak after snapping the Kamloops Blazers hot stretch on Saturday. The Tigers came into Wednesday’s contest against the CHL’s top team off a 5-2 loss against the Swift Current Broncos.
Evan May backstopped the Tigers to the victory, making 40 saves for his fourth win of the season. Head coach Willie Desjardins says the 18-year-old has had a lot of good games for them this season, including Wednesday’s.
“That was a huge game and they had a lot of hard shots to handle but he took a lot of clean where he didn’t give up rebounds,” Desjardins said. “It had to be a real confidence booster for him and it was huge for our team. That’s obviously a really good hockey team and for us to get get a win there is huge.”
The 18-year-old wasn’t too excited after the win, just happy to help the team get two points.
“It’s a great feeling, we need these two points were tied with a few teams in the standings, so it’s a really big difference,” May said.
Winnipeg was on the board first as Easton Armstrong scored 2:48 into the opening period. Less than three minutes later, they pushed their lead to 2-0 with a goal from Zack Ostapchuk.
The Tigers mounted an early comeback in the first as Hunter St. Martin knocked in a loose puck at the 10:10 mark to cut the Ice’s lead to 2-1. Oasiz Wiesblatt and Reid Andresen had the assists on St. Martin’s sixth of the season, kicking off their multi point nights. Just 4:12 later, Medicine Hat drew even with Winnipeg on a power play goal from Wiesblatt, with Andresen and Cayden Lindstrom notching the assists.
Wiesblatt, who had four points on the night for the first time in his WHL career, says his line and the team kept their pace after Winnipeg’s early lead, not giving in to the deficit.
“Just had to keep going and our line has a lot of speed, so anything can happen,” Wiesblatt said. “We knew we just had to get on their D-men and I thought we did that well after the probably the first period. Then we really stuck to our game plan and our structure.”
Medicine Hat carried the offence into the second period as Andrew Basha scored on a breakaway three minutes into the frame. Wiesblatt and St. Martin had the helpers on Basha’s 15th.
The Ice tied the game up 10:11 later with a power play goal from Connor McClennon, his 40th goal on the season. But that tie only lasted 1:10 later as the Tigers had a two-on-one breakaway that ended with Cru Hanas knocking in a pass from Shane Smith for his first Western Hockey League goal.
Wiesblatt finished off his four-point night with the eventual game winner, scoring his second of the game and 24th of the year 8:03 into the final period. Matthew Savoie scored on a power play a little over two minutes later to bring Winnipeg within one but the Tigers lead was lengthened to 6-4 on a goal from Andresen at the 15:51 mark. Dallon Melin and Lindstrom had the assists on Andresen’s seventh.
The win moves the Tigers record to 25-24-8-1, putting them third in the Central Division and seventh in the Eastern Conference. They are off Thursday before hosting the Edmonton Oil Kings on Friday.
