Hurricanes power play gets rolling in win

By Dale Woodard on December 18, 2021.

On ugly sweater night at the Enmax Centre, the Lethbridge Hurricanes had a start to match.

Fortunately, the outcome in their final home game before the Christmas break came gift wrapped with a pair of points following a 6-4 win over the Medicine Hat Tigers in Western Hockey League play Friday night.

The Tigers jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a shorthanded goal from Lukas Svejkovsky and another from Reid Andersen 3:27 in, but a five-on-three goal from Justin Hall got the Hurricanes on the board and the hosts rolling on their way to the win that improves them to 11-11-2-0.

The teams go back at it in the rematch tonight at 7 p.m. in Medicine Hat.

“It was a slow start for us,” said Hurricanes co-captain and defenceman Joe Arntsen, who had two assists in Friday’s win. “But we got rolling once we got our feet under us and started playing, we’re a better team than them and we showed it at the end.”

Still, it was the visitors who struck early and it only took them 50 seconds on a shorthanded tally as Svejkovsky cashed in on a giveaway from Canes defenceman Nolan Bentham at the Lethbridge blue line, snapping a shot past Canes goaltender Jared Picklyk for a quick 1-0 lead.

It was 2-0 Tigers a little over two minutes later when Andersen scored on a shot off the right wing.

The Hurricanes were given a two-man advantage for 1:05 later in the first period and cashed in as Hall tipped a feed from Alex Thacker past Tigers goaltender Beckett Langkow to make it 2-1 with 4:33 left in the first.

The Hurricanes had a few chances to tie it as Logan Wormald shot high and wide on a glorious chance off a feed from Hall. In the final minute, Canes forward Noah Boyko was sprung on a breakaway, but shot wide as the Tigers carried a 2-1 lead into the first intermission despite being outshot 18-7.

The Hurricanes knotted it up 3:57 into the second when Logan Barlage got his stick on a point shot from Arntsen to make it 2-2.

Lethbridge went back to the power play when Tigers Luke Rybinski was called for kneeing and only took six seconds to convert when Ty Nash’s eighth of the season gave the Canes their first lead to make it 3-2 at the 8:39 mark.

The Tigers evened it up 33 seconds later when Oren Shtrom finished off a nice passing play for his sixth of the season to knot it up at 3-3 at the 9:12 mark of the second.

The play opened up late in the second and the Tigers almost went up 4-3 with a little under two minutes to go, but Noah Danielson’s shot grazed the post past Picklyk and stayed out.

A few seconds later, Picklyk was called upon to stop Shtrom in close to keep it tied.

The Canes responded and took the lead with 1:11 to go in the second on a goal from Jett Jones to make it 4-3 Lethbridge after 40 minutes.

“The way we’ve playing in the last 10 games, we’ve really been happy with the effort from our guys,” said Hurricanes assistant coach Jeff Hansen. “The bench was good and we were still saying we had 55 minutes left. It was really good on the power play to go out and get that big goal on a five-on-three on a really nice play. The power play got the ball rolling and it set us up to go out there five-on-five and get the lead back.”

The Hurricanes power play clicked for the third time of the night and Hall netted his second of the game and 12th of the season for a 5-3 lead with 7:24 to go.

Boyko scored his 10th of the season with 3:47 remaining, but the Tigers struck one more time when Brayden Boehm scored on the power play with 1:36 remaining.

“We really liked how we overcame the adversity early,” said Hansen. “There were a couple of bad bounces early and then we were staring a 2-0 deficit in the face. I thought our guys stuck with it, played hard and did what we needed to do to get the win. It was good job coming back.”

The Hurricanes outshot the Tigers 32-31. Medicine Hat outshot the Canes 12-6 in the second and 12-8 in the third.

With the win, Picklyk improves his record to 3-1-0-0 this season.

The Canes were 3-for-6 on the power play, while the Tigers went 1-for-4.

The teams drop the puck tonight in Medicine Hat before a Christmas breather.

“It’s always nice to get home, see some family and sleep in your bed,” said Arntsen. “But we have to stay dialed in for one more day and then we’ll be heading into the Christmas break feeling really good.”

Friday’s announced attendance was 2,862.

Follow @@DWoodardHerald on Twitter