Canes win wild one in shootout
It was fitting the Lethbridge Hurricanes and Edmonton Oil Kings took the marathon route Friday night at the Enmax Centre. It gave both teams a chance to serve up a little bit of everything before the Canes prevailed in a wild 3-2 shootout win in Western Hockey League play.
Trailing 2-0 after the second, the Hurricanes got third-period goals from Jake Elmer and Taylor Ross — with 1:08 to go and with goaltender Reece Klassen on the bench for the extra attacker — to force overtime.
The Oil Kings thought they had the game-winner in overtime when WHL leading scorer Trey Fix-Wolansky stuffed a loose puck past Klassen, only to have the goal waved off when it was ruled the whistle had blown.
When overtime solved nothing, the ensuing shootout — in keeping with the theme of the night — went past the three-round minimum before Ross scored in the fifth round and Klassen turned away Edmonton’s Quinn Benjafield to earn the Hurricanes the second point that improves them to 9-6-2-2 for third in the Central.
It was the first time this season the Oil Kings have lost after scoring the first goal and the second time the Canes won after trailing after two periods.
“I thought it was a hard-fought game,” said Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio. “I thought the first period was really tight with both teams working really hard. But we found that tempo and urgency that we have to play with. We came out in the third period and we had a lot of chances before the last minute to tie it up and couldn’t find it, but the guys stuck with it and it was a big goal at the end.”
The teams skated to a scoreless draw until midway through the second when the Oil Kings were handed a two-man advantage for 14 seconds and used it to break the tie as Vince Loschiavo scored with 8:44 left in the second period.
Klassen kept it 1-0 shortly after, sliding across his crease to deny Jalen Luypen.
But Luypen didn’t miss in his next chance, hammering home a cross-ice feed from Aidan Lawson with 3:31 to go in the second for a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes.