Hitmen win in overtime — again
Juniors occupy final playoff spot
You win some, you lose some, and in the case of the Calgary Hitmen, a disproportionate number of games end up going to overtime.
On Wednesday morning, the Hitmen played in overtime for a franchise-record 21st time this season, squeezing out a 4-3 shootout victory over the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings at the Saddledome.
“It’ll be funny at the end of the year to tabulate how much extra hockey we’ve actually played,” said Hitmen head coach Mark French. “You want to learn how to play in these games, in tight games, and we’re learning for sure because we’ve played a lot of them.”
All the experience gained playing in the WHL’s three-on-three playoff format appears to be paying dividends, as Wednesday’s win was the Hitmen’s fourth victory in their last five games that have needed the extra session.
It wasn’t perfect, though, as the team squandered a power play in overtime, only for Jakob Stukel and Jake Kryski to score in the shootout while goaltender Trevor Martin stopped both Reid Duke and Nolan Patrick.
That effort saw the Hitmen (23-26-10) collect a precious extra point against a Wheat Kings (28-23-9) team that’s directly in front of them in the WHL’s Eastern Conference standings.
Every point matters at this stage in the season, as the Hitmen have inched ahead of the Saskatoon Blades and currently sit in the second-and-final wild card spot, but only two points separate the two teams.
“It’s huge for us,” said Beck Malenstyn, who scored the Hitmen’s opening goal. “We’re taking a turn in the right direction. We’re on a three-game win streak and I think we’re playing a lot better hockey. I think it’s huge for us to come into the end of that game and get a win.”
While those two points are, ultimately, all that matter at the end of the day, the Hitmen couldn’t be totally pleased with their performance.
After Malenstyn’s opener, Hitmen forwards Andrei Grishakov and Matteo Gennaro followed up with goals of their own to send the 10,896 fans at the Saddledome into a frenzy heading into the first intermission.
Most of those in attendance were school kids at the Saddledome for the first Be Brave Anti-Bullying game, and the crowd was in a complete frenzy as the second period kicked off.
The Wheat Kings bounced back with goals from Patrick, Kale Clague and Calgarian Duke to force overtime — again.
“There’s certainly somethings we learned (from Wednesday’s effort),” French said. “I think we had a real good start and a real good push, but you expect teams to push back and when they did push back, we probably didn’t answer as quickly as we needed to, which allowed them to get back in the game.”
Because of the early start, the Hitmen now have more than two full days to recover and prepare for a pivotal stretch of three games in three nights heading into the weekend.
The Hitmen will host the Medicine Hat Tigers on Friday night (7 p.m.) before a Saturday evening showdown in Red Deer and a return engagement against that same Rebels team at the Saddledome on Sunday afternoon (4 p.m.).
Ideally, they’ll be able to finish a couple of those games in regulation, although they’ll take the points any way they can get them.