Hitmen make most of shots
Every offensive cylinder is clicking for the Calgary Hitmen these days. The veterans? No doubt. In the Hitmen’s 6-1 win Friday over the Moose Jaw Warriors at the Scotiabank Saddledome, Cody Sylvester and Zane Jones —with tallies—extended their point streaks to four games. To boot, Brooks Macek hit the 20goal plateau. The kids? Of course. Austin Calladine and Chase Lang recorded their first Western Hockey League goals in Wednesday’s 10-2 kicking of the Brandon Wheat Kings. And now? Contributions are coming from even the quiet corners of the dressing room. Like, the really quiet corners.
Rookie Colby Harms worth entered Friday’s contest with one career assist. In a five-minute span against the Warriors, he churned out three helpers.
“It was pretty surreal, but I won’t complain,” said Harmsworth, chuckling. “It’s definitely a confidence booster to get your name on the scoresheet a few times. Hopefully, there’s more to come. It feels good to chip in. I think it’s been 20 games or so since my last point.
“It was all second assists — so it was just giving the pucks to the forwards and letting them do their thing. So that’s nice.”
A Saskatoon Contacts product, Harmsworth insisted that production isn’t a priority for him anyway.
“I don’t focus on points,” he said. “If they come, that’s a plus, but I try to focus on the defensive aspects of my game a little bit more.”
Improving to 26-10-4, the Hitmen also got goals from Alex Roach (power-play blast) and Pavlo Padakin (nifty steal-and-shoot) and Brendan Hurley (perfectly levered backhand). It wasn’t always pretty. But you’re not going to hit double digits every night, are you? Friday, however, it had appeared the locals might not accumulate 10 shots, let alone 10 goals.
“The first half definitely wasn’t where we wanted to be,” said Harmsworth. “But I thought in the second half we came out pretty strong. We got the win and that’s all that matters.”
Part of the credit — as usual — goes to Calgary netminder Chris Driedger.
Tied 1-1 through 32 minutes — Carter Hansen registered the guests’ goal — the Warriors held a 17-5 shot advantage.
“Driedger held us in there basically,” said Jones. “Then we thought, ‘Just throw the puck on net. Get as many bodies as we can (in front), put them in the greasy way.’ That’s what we tried to do and it worked.”
Because, in a five-minute span in the second period, the Hitmen scored rapidly — on their sixth, seventh, ninth, 15th shots of the night. They never looked back. “We know we need goals, we can definitely get them,” said Jones. “The biggest thing for us is just working hard for a full 60 minutes, like we did in the Brandon game — we really didn’t take a shift off.I wish we’d done that in this game.”
NOTES: Calgary scratches included D Josh Thrower and LW Jake Virtanen, both away at the World Under-17 Challenge; C Victor Rask, who’s part of Sweden’s squad at the world junior championship; LW Elliott Peterson (upper body) and LW Calder Brooks (upper body) . . . Moose Jaw, of course, went without the high-calibre services of D Morgan Rielly, currently skating with Canada’s entry in Ufa, Russia.