Hurricanes look to rebound in Game 3

By Lethbridge Herald on April 3, 2023.

Justin Seward – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – sports@lethbridgeherald.com

The Lethbridge Hurricanes are down two games to none in their best-of-seven first round playoff series with the Moose Jaw Warriors and look to get a home-ice win in Game 3 tonight.

The Canes are coming home having lost 2-1 in double overtime on Friday and dropped Game 2 5-1 on Saturday night.

Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio thinks Lethbridge is always good at home.

“We’re going to come home now and we’ve been good at home all year long,” said Kisio.

“Our fans are amazing. They’ll come out and they support us like they always do and we’ll have more energy. We’ll get regrouped here and hey it’s a long series. We knew it was going to be a long series. Now it’s our job to go home and hold court like Moose Jaw did.”

Kisio said it’s incredible, when it comes to playoff hockey at the Enmax Centre

“It’s incredible to play playoff hockey in our building,” said Kisio.

“Our building is a pretty special place to play, especially come playoff time, and we’ll be excited for that moment, and let’s worry about Game 3. But it’s always special to be in playoffs and it’s even better to be at home.”

Kisio said “we’ll see,” when it comes to changing up the line combinations to try and get an offensive spark.

“We’ll watch some video, and we’ll have some meetings and we’ll kind of see what we have to do for some adjustments,” said Kisio.

“We need a lot of guys to step up,” said Kisio.

“It’s playoff hockey and in playoffs you need a bunch of your older guys and some unsung heroes to step up. And we’re behind (0-2) in the series, so we’re going to need a lot of guys to step up.”

The Canes are struggling offensively so far in the series.

“Oh for sure,” said Kisio, when asked about being offensively challenged after the two losses.

“We had opportunities tonight (Saturday) to score goals. We had some empty nets and we had some real good opportunities but (we have) got to bear down a bit more and (we have) to get a little bit more traffic in front of (Warriors goalie Connor) Ungar. He’s playing real good but there’s chances for us there and there’s rebounds there for us and (we have) got to do a better job creating offence.”

The Canes are also struggling on the powerplay, as the team has gone 1-for-10 through the first two games.