Blazers hand Hurricanes third consecutive loss

By Lethbridge Herald on February 24, 2023.

Herald photo by Justin SEWARD Lethbridge Hurricanes Brayden Edwards battles with Kamloops Blazers defenceman Aapo Sarell during Western Hockey League action at the Enmax Centre on Friday night.

The Lethbridge Hurricanes lost their third consecutive game this week with a 6-2 loss to the B.C. Division-leading Kamloops Blazers on Friday night at the Enmax Centre.  

“Yeah, I thought we played hard in the first two periods,” said Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio.

“I thought we played a real solid game. They’re a good hockey team, they’re well coached and they play a structured game and it just got away from us in the third.”

However, the Hurricanes rose to the occasion for most of the night with the juggernaut Blazers.

“We’ve played a lot of good teams this year,” said Kisio.

“We’ve played Seattle, Red Deer, the list goes on and on. But we seem to rise up to it and I thought our guys battled and competed, and the crowd was outstanding tonight and I thought we fed off that.”

The Blazers’ Logan Stankoven opened the scoring  with his 29th of the season just 34 seconds into the middle frame.

Caedan Bankier and Logan Bairos drew the assists on the goal.

Tyson Zimmer was sprung on a breakaway at the 2:11 mark of the second period, and beat Blazers goalie Dylan Ernst five hole for his 15th goal of the season from Blake Swetlikoff to tie the game at one.

Swetlikoff pulled the home side ahead 2-1 at 16:02 of the second period, as he redirected an  Anton Astashevich cross ice backhand pass into of the net.

Fraser Minten of the Blazers tied the game at two with a minute to go in the second period with his 26th of the season.

Ryan Hofer and Kyle Masters drew assists on Kamloops’ second goal of the contest.

The Blazers pulled away with four goals in the third period.

Blazers defencemen Olen Zellweger rifled his 20th of the season past Canes goalie Bryan Thomson at 9:53 of third period on the powerplay to give Kamloops a 3-2 lead.

Stankoven and Matthew Seminoff assisted on Zellweger’s marker.

Kyle Masters doubled Kamloops lead from Stankoven at 10:51 of third with his 10th of the season.

Bankier scored his 29th into an empty net at 16:53 of the third to make the contest 5-2 for the visitors.

Ashton Ferster scored the Blazers sixth goal at 17:55 of the third.

“Yeah, I mean credit to them, they’re a real good team,” said Zimmer.

“You know those first two periods were really good. I thought we played really well. We were with  them neck and neck, (and)  going 2-2 in (to) the third, that’s a good spot to be. But like you said… they’re a good team, so if we’re down for a couple minutes, they’re going to take advantage of it and they did exactly that.”

The Blazers have now won 11 in a row with the win.

Lethbridge will look to turn their fortunes around as they begin a four-game road trip today in Calgary at 2 p.m.

“Well the biggest thing for us is we’ve got to reset,” said Kisio.

“We’ve got a big game (today). So we don’t have a lot of time to hold our heads. We’ve got to get up and get excited for (today’s) game.”