Stotts nets overtime winner to lift Hitmen over Tigers

The Medicine Hat Tigers fell just short of a third straight overtime victory in a back-and-forth battle on Wednesday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

Hitmen winger Riley Stotts broke a 3-3 stalemate 47 seconds into overtime to give Calgary their first win of 2018 despite trailing for the better part of the opening 60 minutes.

While the Hitmen carried the momentum in the early going, Medicine Hat managed to turn the tides when Jaeger White drew an interference call on Jackson van de Leest midway through the opening frame.

Just less than a minute into the ensuing penalty, David Quenneville called for a pass from Dylan MacPherson at the top of the circle and ripped a one-timer past Hitmen goaltender and former Tiger Nick Schneider. The goal was Quenneville’s 16th of the season, a league-high among defencemen.

But the Hitmen pushed back when Tigers goaltender Jordan Hollett lost his stick on the penalty kill. Mark Kastelic capitalized on the situation by chipping a rebound past Hollett at the end of a goalmouth scramble to draw even through 20 minutes.

Mark Rassell put the Tigers back out in front less than two minutes into the middle frame. The 20-year-old Calgary product stepped into the slot and fired his 33rd of the season past Schneider in front of a hometown crowd to extend his point streak to five games, with goals in each of the past four.

While Calgary’s Jakob Stukel erased the deficit later in the frame by breaking in all alone and beating Hollett on the backhand, Jameson Murray quickly put the Hitmen back into penalty trouble — and Max Gerlach made him pay for his kneeing infraction.

Tigers centre Gary Haden set things up after cutting past Luke Prokop late in the power play and feeding a cross-ice pass to Gerlach for the Texan sniper’s 14th of the year.

The back-and-forth action continued three minutes later when Hitmen winger Hunter Campbell jumped on a rebound in the blue paint and slotted the puck past Hollett to set up a winner-take-all third period.

While Hollett held the door shut with seven saves in the third period to force overtime, Stotts finally broke the seesaw scoring trend with his sixth of the year to secure the win and push Calgary to 1220-5-1 on the season.

Schneider made 23 saves in the victory, while Hollett stopped 28 in the loss, dropping Medicine Hat to 21-15-30.

Ryan Jevne and Linus Nassen were both missing from Wednesday’s contest. Jevne served the first of a three-game suspension for head contact in Monday’s game against the Kootenay Ice, while Nassen is listed as out for 6-to-8 weeks with an upper body injury.

The Tigers return to the Canalta Centre Friday to host the Edmonton Oil Kings at 7:30 p.m.