CANES, PATS in Game 5 battle
Teams looking to gain edge in Eastern Conference final
Despite a better effort, the Lethbridge Hurricanes will fight for their playoff lives Sunday night. The Hurricanes were defeated 53 by the Regina Pats in Game 5 of the Western Hockey League Eastern Conference final Friday night at the Brandt Centre.
With the win, the Pats take a 3-2 series lead and can close out the deal in Game 6 Sunday at 6 p.m. at the Enmax Centre in Lethbridge.
On Friday, the Canes opened the scoring and battled the Pats goalfor-goal in the opening 40 minutes before Regina’s Dawson Leedahl scored his 11th goal of the playoffs 6:35 into the third for the gamewinner and Austin Wagner added an empty-netter with three seconds to go to round out the scoring.
The Hurricanes were afforded a golden opportunity to tie the game midway through the third with a two-man advantage, but the Pats were able to come up with a crucial kill to keep their one-goal lead before Wagner added the emptynetter.
“I thought it was a good hockey game, I thought we played pretty well,” said Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio, who felt his team was outworked and outplayed in Game 4’s 6-2 loss Wednesday in Lethbridge. “There were two good teams going at it. Obviously our power play had a chance to tie it up and we didn’t execute when we had to. Overall, I thought we played a solid game, we just had to find a way to get that extra goal.”
The Hurricanes struck first 2:53 in as rookie Josh Tarzwell’s backhand found its way past a few bodies and past Regina goaltender Tyler Brown for a 1-0 lead.
But with 4:23 left in the first, Josh Mahura snuck a point shot past Hurricanes goaltender Stuart Skinner as the teams skated into the first intermission knotted at 11.
Tarzwell left the game after his goal with an injury.
The Pats nearly took a 2-1 lead a little over two minutes into the second when Austin Wagner snuck behind the Canes defence, but was unable to stuff a backhand past Skinner as the score remained tied.
Lethbridge went to the power play shortly afterward and turned that into a 2-1 lead when Ryan Vandervlis cashed in on a rebound 3:04 into the second.
But Regina drew even for the second time with a Sam Steel power play goal.
The Pats took their first lead with 8:31 left in the second when Philip Ahl finished off a passing play from Wagner and Adam Brooks that just slid across the goal line for a 3-2 lead.
The goal swapping continued and Egor Babenko pulled Lethbridge even at 3-3 with 6:06 left in the second with his ninth of the post season.
But Leedahl struck for the go-ahead goal early in the third before the Pats special teams went to work for 1:30 when Sergey Zborovskiy was called for cross checking and Leedahl was tagged for high-sticking.
But Regina was able to kill off both infractions to keep their lead intact, drawing a hefty round of applause from the sold out crowd of 6,484.
“Obviously we didn’t come out and play the way we could have off the hop,” said Brooks, who had four assists Friday including a helper on the game-winner. “Thanks to Tyler, he buckled down and held the fort and we were able to get our feet under us and get going.”
The task facing the Pats midway through the third and down two men with a one-goal lead was simple.
“Kill it,” said Brooks. “You don’t really have any other option than to bear down and kill the penalty.”
Hurricanes captain Tyler Wong credited his team for a strong effort.
“I think we outplayed them and that we played really hard and that’s something we can take pride in and take back to Lethbridge for Game 6,” he said. “It’s just little mental errors. That game-winning goal, me and Z (Zak Zborosky) got caught out there, we lost a guy in the slot and that’s how quick a game can turn on you. We have to tighten a few things up, but overall I think we played a good game. We outshot them tonight and that’s something we wanted to do all series long and we know Stu is going to show up and play great for us. We just have to find a way to limit their key scoring chances.”
The Hurricanes head home Sunday needing a win that will put them in a position they’ve already been in twice this post season.
“We played well in our rink, so we’re excited to get there,” said Kisio. “Our place is going to be rocking and we just have to force Game 7. We’ve had two already, we might as well have three.”
NOTES: Wong was greeted with a chorus of boos every time he touched the puck Friday night. But post-game, the captain greeted the treatment from the Regina crowd with a grin. “It fires me up, it makes we want to score even more,” said Wong. “It’s unfortunate I wasn’t able to do that, but it’s playoff hockey. I play on the edge and the fans can do what they want. I hope our fans will repay the favour to some of their top guys. Hopefully we’ll have a loud crowd on Sunday that will show up and let them hear as well.”