Hitmen fall flat in crucial clash
A day before their biggest game of the season, the Calgary Hitmen were saying all the right things.
On Wednesday, it was the visiting Saskatoon Blades who did all the right things on their way to a 6-2 win over the Hitmen in front of 7,607 fans at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
The win put the Blades (27-31-9) three points ahead of the Hitmen (25-31-10) in the race for the final wild-card playoff berth in the WHL’s Eastern Conference.
Defenceman Jake Bean, who had a goal and five assists in three previous games against the Blades this season, referred to the Hitmen Tuesday as a “confident group.”
“We know where our game is at and we know what we need to do going into every game,” said Bean. “I think it’s just playing our game and not changing the way we play depending on the opponent. We know we need to play a blue-collar game. If we can do that against any team in the league on any given night, we can win, so I think we just stick to our systems and we’ve got to do that (against Saskatoon).”
Unfortunately for Calgary, that game plan went out the window when the Blades scored three goals in the second period to jump out to a four-goal lead the Hitmen weren’t able to erase.
Kirby Dach, a 15-year-old rookie who the Blades picked second overall in the 2016 bantam draft, opened the scoring at 5:08 of the first period when he stole the puck from Hitmen goalie Cody Porter behind the net and tucked it into an open net.
Gage Ramsay and Mason Mc- Carty then scored goals 2:01 apart early in the second before Josh Paterson scored a near replica of Dach’s goal by picking Porter’s pocket behind the net before depositing it into a yawning cage for a short-handed marker at 12:27.
That marked the end of Porter’s night as he finished with nine saves after making a remarkable comeback from a shoulder injury suffered Jan. 6 against the Regina Pats.
“I had seven injuries on the one play,” explained Porter the day before making his miraculous return.
“It was a third-degree separated shoulder, third-degree dislocated shoulder, third-degree broken collarbone, torn labrum, torn AC (acromioclavicular) joint, torn rotator cuff and a torn Bankart lesion. So it was a pretty serious injury off of a play that didn’t seem very serious at the time. It was pretty crazy when I first saw the injury report. It’s all healed now and it’s ready to go, so I don’t mind saying what it was. The amount of things (I was) having to deal with, it was pretty difficult.”
After Porter’s difficulties in net, Kyle Dumba took over between the pipes and made 11 saves.
Chase Wouters added another short-handed goal at 7:20 of the third period before Bryton Sayers fired a point shot past Dumba at 15:08.
The Hitmen finally got on the board 35 seconds later when Mark Kastelic swatted a loose puck in the crease past Saskatoon goalie Logan Flodell, who finished the game with 16 saves. Matteo Gennaro rounded out the scoring for the Hitmen at 19:49 with his teamleading 40th goal of the season.
Calgary still has a game in hand on Saskatoon and six outings left to try to close the gap. The Hitmen host the Hurricanes Friday (7 p.m.) before the teams play Saturday in Lethbridge.