NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Noah Davidson is swarmed by teammates as he celebrates his second goal in an 8-4 win Friday night at Co-op Place over the Red Deer Rebels.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com
After spending most of the week on the road, the Medicine Hat Tigers returned home Friday with a win.
The Tigers scored four goals in the third period in a back-and-forth affair at Co-op Place with Red Deer to beat the Rebels 8-4, picking up a ninth straight win.
Seven Tigers recorded multi-point nights, with Noah Davidson tallying a pair of goals and Andrew Basha finishing with a goal and two assists.
“Our goal is to win and we found a way to do it,” Davidson said. “They pushed in the third but we just found a way.”
The Tigers opened the scoring a little over five minutes into the game.
On a puck dump into the Rebels end, Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll beat out a Red Deer defender to a puck behind the net and he passed out to Markus Ruck in the slot who went bar down to score his 19th of the season. Ruck’s goal extends his point streak to six games.
A back-and-forth second period started with some Tigers offence.
From the Medicine Hat end, Carter Cunningham threw the puck up ice to a streaking Noah Davidson who picked the puck up from his feet before skating in and scoring his first of the game. Davidson pushes his point streak to six games.
The Rebels responded, with a redirection goal from Kohen Lodge 33 seconds later. He tipped in a shot from Aleksey Chichkin to mkae it a 2-1 game.
A little under six minutes later, Davidson picked up a loose puck in the slot and fired home his second of the night, 28th of the season. Kade Stengrim and Cunningham had the assists as the Tigers led 3-1 at 12:30.
Just 40 seconds later, Beckett Hamilton sent the puck up ice to a rushing Poul Anderson who got in behind the Tiger defence and scored to make it a 3-2 lead.
With 2:49 left in the period, the Tigers skated into the Red Deer end. Liam Ruck dropped off for Andrew Basha and the Calgary Flames prospect curled and dragged a puck before scoring his 14th of the season. Markus Ruck had the second assist. Basha’s marker extends both his and Liam’s point streak to 13 games.
Head coach Willie Desjardins credited the Rebels in the contest and he liked the Tigers response in the third.
“We played well early, hit some posts, Red Deer is a good team, you can see why they’re winning a little, they beat Prince Albert and you can see why they’re not giving up as much, they’re pretty quick on the breakouts, they had a couple chances,” Desjardins said. “I thought our penalty kill was good tonight. When they come out and they got the one to start the third, that put the game on the line again and I thought we responded really well after that.”
The Rebels opened the third period with a goal, Jiri Kamas scoring from the point on a shot starter Carter Casey got a blocker on before it popped into the net, to make it a 4-3 game 17 seconds into the frame.
Medicine Hat responded with four straight goals, three coming in 3:33 of action.
Veeti Väisänen finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play from Yaroslav Brygalov and Basha for his fifth of the season and first in return from injury. Both Väisänen and Niilopekka have been out of the lineup since the middle of Februar
Cam Parr backhanded a puck on net that trickled over the goal line before it was pulled out, creating some confusion on the ice that saw Tyson Moss fire the puck into the open net. After a review, Parr’s attempt was ruled a good goal, with Kadon McCann and Ethan Neatens recording the assists on Parr’s sixth.
Pickford had the puck at the point, working into the slot through contact, before scoring with a backhand shot for his 42nd of the season. Woo and Basha had the assists.
The Tigers run finished with 3:09 left in the game, Stengrim hammering a shot from the back door off a pass from Pickford for his 18th. Woo had the second assist.
Before the game ended, Kalder Varga scored from the point on a Red Deer power play to make it the 8-4 final.
Casey finished with 24 saves for his 17th win of the season. Peyton Shore started for Red Deer and was pulled after allowing seven goals on 36 shots. Matthew Kondro came into the game in the third period, making five saves. The Tigers outshot Red Deer 42-28. In a back-and-forth game, Casey says they put an importance on riding momentum or rebounding.
“We always talk about the shifts after we score and after they score, obviously they got a couple after we scored in the second period there,” Casey said. “So especially after that, for me, I was just trying to try to lock it down, make that next save and make sure that didn’t happen again.”
Medicine Hat (45-9-5-3) finishes the four-game week on Saturday when they head to Edmonton to face the Oil Kings.
A victory for the Tigers and they would clinch the Central division in back-to-back seasons, an achievement they haven’t accomplished since 2016-18. Edmonton hasn’t played all week, Desjardins says they’ve shown character all week and he says they’ll have to lean on it again.
“They showed it in Regina, they showed it in Brandon and they showed it going to Edmonton and then Calgary, they’ve showed (their character) so much this year,” Desjardins said. “Edmonton hasn’t played since Sunday, so it’s a really tough game for us with everything we’ve gone through. But it’s just going to have to be our character. We’re going tohave to play hard with it. But certainly a game where the schedule favours them.”
