Hurricanes pushed to the brink of elimination after Game 3 loss

By Lethbridge Herald on April 26, 2022.

Herald photo by Justin Seward Hurricanes Tyson Laventure tries to escape the check of Edmonton Oil Kings Simon Kubicek as Justin Hall battles with Edmonton’s Logan Dowhaniuk during Game 3 playoff action on Tuesday night at the Enmax Centre.

Justin Seward – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – sports@lethbridgeherald.com

The Edmonton Oil Kings are in the driver’s seat against the Lethbridge Hurricanes as they won Game 3 4-1 at the Enmax Centre on Tuesday night and take a commanding 3-0 series lead.

“We’ve got to find a way to score goals,” said Brent Kisio, Hurricanes head coach.

“You know, Edmonton’s a good hockey club and they’re playing us hard. We wanted to come out and have a better start than we did tonight and it just wasn’t the outcome we wanted.”

Oil Kings head coach Brad Lauer thought both teams were playing playoff hockey and emotional.

“Both teams want to win and both teams are very competitive,” said Lauer.

“We understand we took care of home ice and you know coming here, I’m sure that’s what they wanted to do. So we needed to be ready for this one. We knew they were going to come out hard, and I thought our guys handled it very well at the beginning of the game and we found our way again to score some goals.”

The Oil Kings got on the scoresheet first as Jalen Luypen scored his second of the series just 2:21 into the contest.

Assists went to Carter Souch and Kaiden Guhle.

It was Guhle who doubled Edmonton’s lead just 1:56 into the second, with Luypen and Josh Williams getting the assists

Souch tipped a powerplay goal past Canes goalie Bryan Thomson at 11:03 of the second to make the game 3-0 for the visitors.

Luke Prokop and Luypen drew the assists on Souch’s second of the postseason.

The Hurricanes finally were able to solve Oil Kings netminder Sebastian Cossa in the third period as Yegor Klavdiev scored his first of the postseason on the powerplay at 3:18 from Logan McCutcheon.

Dylan Guenther made the game 4-1 Oil Kings at 6:13 with his third of the playoffs.

Both teams didn’t shy away from the extra curriculars after the whistle and showed their physicality.

“It’s playoff hockey,” said Kisio.

“Both teams are playing physical. It’s been like that for the first two games in Edmonton and to carry on into our rink here, it’s been a battle that way. It’s been a real physical series.”

Kisio noted that they scored a goal on Cossa but need to find a way to get more than one.

“Tommy’s (Thomson) playing great for us,” said Kisio.

“So we’ve got a lot of opportunities. He’s given us a chance to win every single game. We’ve got to find a way to score goals for our goalie.”

Now with their backs against the wall, the coach’s message was simple.

“We’ve just got to win the game,” said Kisio, on heading into Game 4.

“We’ve just got to win one game. We’re going to take it a game at a time.”

Hurricanes forward Corson Hopwo said the team has to play harder.

“We’ve just got to stick to it throughout the whole game and so I think just play harder,” said Hopwo.

Hopwo feels the Hurricanes have matched Edmonton’s physicality.

“Yeah, we’ve been trying to push the physicality throughout the games,” said Hopwo.

“But I think we can still add more physicality. I think we can run them down and push them out.”

Edmonton out shot Lethbridge 38-26 in the game

The Oil Kings went 1-for 6 and Lethbridge went 1-for-5 on the man advantage

The Hurricanes will look to stave off elimination in Game 4 on Thursday night at the Enmax Centre with puck drop at 7 p.m.