SOUTHERN ALBERTA NEWS GROUP IAN MARTENS
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Oasiz Wiesblatt and Lethbridge Hurricanes forward Brayden Edwards follow the play during WHL action Friday night in Lethbridge.
Southern Alberta’s flash freeze hit the Medicine Hat Tigers offence Friday night.
Less than a week after scoring 22 goals in two games, the Tigers were held to two markers in a 5-2 road loss to the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
Medicine Hat came into the contest off a 10-4 win Sunday over the Spokane Chiefs, with Friday’s contest their first since the WHL trade deadline on Wednesday.
Lethbridge got on the board early, with Trae Wilkie scoring his eighth of the season 1:39 into the contest.
Medicine Hat struck back soon after, with Vasyl Spilka taking a pass from Gavin McKenna and working his way into the slot before scoring his fourth of the season. Marcus Pacheco had the second assist as it was a 1-1 game 5:24 in.
The Hurricanes grabbed a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes on a power play goal from Logan Warmold, his 10th marker of the season. Lethbridge outshot the Tigers 12-11 in the first.
The Hurricanes carried the offence into the second period, rattling off three straight goals for a 5-1 lead after 20 minutes.
Logan McCutcheon scored 8:44 into the middle frame for his fifth of the season. Just under eight minutes later, Dylan Sydor scored his first goal as a Hurricane since being acquired from the Kamloops Blazers. His power play marker was his 20th of the season and was followed up with another marker 1:26 later. Leo Braillard scored his eighth of the season to chase starter Zach Zahara from the net.
Zahara, making his 10th start of the season, made 19 saves in the loss. Ethan McCallum took over between the pipes and stopped all seven shots, including multiple breakaway opportunities, he faced in 22:06 of action.
The Tigers answered back late in the second period with the final goal of the contest. On a last minute power play, McKenna sent a puck out net and Shane Smith bunted it out of the air to make it a 5-2 game. Tomas Mrsic had the second assist on Smith’s 19th goal of the season.
The play went back and forth in the third period with the Tigers making a push but could not generate enough to complete the comeback, falling 5-2. Across the ice from Zahara and McCallum, Harrison Meneghin made 33 saves for his 18th win on the year.
The Hurricanes power play converted on two of five opportunities, Medicine Hat capitalized on one of their five power plays. The Tigers were without forward Andrew Basha (lower body) and Cayden Lindstrom (upper body) on Friday.
The home-and-home between the Tigers (22-13-2) and Hurricanes (20-16-3) returns to Medicine Hat and Co-op Place on Saturday.
