Hitmen drop third straight at home

The Calgary Hitmen haven’t exactly taken care of business on home ice this season.

Since beating the Kootenay Ice 3-1 in their home opener on Sept. 24, the Hitmen (3-6-1) have lost three straight games at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

Although they jumped out to a 1-0 lead over the visiting Lethbridge Hurricanes on Sunday in front of 5,936 fans, the Hitmen eventually wound up on the wrong end of a 3-1 decision.

“Our first period was really good,” said Hitmen forward Jakob Stukel, who scored Calgary’s lone goal of the game at 3:22 of the opening frame. “You can’t be complaining about that, but the second and third, I thought we kind of laid off the gas a little bit.”

The Hurricanes (4-4-0) showed why they have the best power play in the Western Hockey League as they finished 2-for-7 with the man advantage.

“Their power play is really good and they showed us that tonight,” said Calgary coach Dallas Ferguson.

Hurricanes captain Giorgio Estephan one-timed a pass from defenceman Calen Addison past Hitmen goalie Nick Schneider at 7:08 of the second, while Jordy Bellerive batted a puck out of mid-air and into the Calgary net for Lethbridge’s second power-play marker of the game at 8:17 of the third.

Zane Franklin added an empty netter with 1:13 to play, while goalie Stuart Skinner stopped 30 of 31 shots he faced to pick up the win.

“In the third, I thought we had a few good looks,” said Ferguson. “We probably could have did a little bit better job of getting some traffic in front of the goaltender.”

Schneider did his best to keep the Hitmen in the game as he finished with 34 saves and was named the game’s third star.

With the game tied 1-1 in the second period, forward Luke Coleman had a great chance to give the Hitmen a lead while they were killing a penalty. Coleman sped into the Lethbridge zone and cut around Addison before flicking a shot on net that Skinner stopped with his left shoulder.

“I just tried to get it over the shoulder, but he’s a pretty big goalie, so he made the good save,” said Coleman, who’s confident that the Hitmen will start racking up wins at the ’Dome. “It doesn’t really make or break your season. We’re obviously going to get a win at home here soon. It’s nothing that we’re stressing too much about.”

Ferguson definitely wants to put an end to Calgary’s stretch of futility at home.

“We’ve got to regroup here, get our minds and our bodies back to where we’re ready to compete for next week,” said Ferguson, whose squad will travel to Red Deer to face the Rebels on Friday before returning home to the ’Dome to host the Prince George Cougars next Sunday. “I think it’s something we talk about obviously, wanting to be hard to play against when you come into this building.

“We’ve got to find ways to be harder to play against. Maybe the first period was a good example of that, but the second and the third when you’re taking penalties and you’re killing penalties, it’s taking a lot of energy out of your top guys that are playing both sides. Those are things we need to look at. We’ve got to find a way to get it done.”

Stukel has had a hot hand of late with goals in three straight games, including the game winner in Calgary’s 4-2 road win against the Kamloops Blazers on Wednesday and another during a 4-3 victory over the Rockets in Kelowna on Friday.

“The last two games against Kamloops and Kelowna were our best two of the year,” Stukel said. “There’s some stuff that we’ve got to tighten up. We’ll definitely be ready against Red Deer.”