Oil Kings cage Tigers with offensive outburst in the second period
Three goals in two minutes rescued the Edmonton Oil Kings from a precarious situation in their Western Hockey League first-round series against the Medicine Hat Tigers.
Quinn Benjafield, Andrew Fyten and Vince Loschiavo scored 1:56 apart in the second period as the Oil Kings overcame one-goal deficit on their way to a 5-1 victory over the Tigers at the Canalta Centre in Medicine Hat on Wednesday.
“It’s no different than any level, you win with your best players, and your veteran players are some of our best players,” said Oil Kings head coach Brad Lauer. “I thought (Wednesday) was a reflection of that, and our guys came in and played well. They scored a really big power play goal.”
The victory evened the best-ofseven series at 2-2 with Game 5 taking place Friday (7 p.m.) at Rogers Place. The series will return to Medicine Hat for Game 6 Sunday, and if necessary, the seventh and deciding game is set for Tuesday at Rogers Place.
“I really thought we responded quite well. I really liked our complete game,” Lauer said. “From (Tuesday) night, we weren’t very good, and sometimes that happens. Call it what you want, we laid an egg. We weren’t very good and we learned from it.
“We made a couple of adjustments for the group and they responded really, really well. I thought our effort and battle level was much better and we really created more offence from those adjustments that we made.”
The Oil Kings came into the contest off a 5-0 loss to the Tigers on Tuesday, which gave Medicine Hat a 2-1 series lead and the opportunity to take a stranglehold with a victory on Wednesday.
The Oil Kings started Game 4 well, outshooting the Tigers 14-5 in the opening period, but were unable to beat goaltender Mads Sogaard, who has been the star of the series so far for Medicine Hat. The Oil Kings went on to outshoot Medicine Hat 36-15
for the game. The Tigers worked their way back into the contest in the second stanza, getting a few good chances on Oil Kings goaltender Todd Scott, who got the start in favour of Dylan Myskiw.
Medicine Hat opened the scoring on the power play at 9:34 of the second period as Ryan Jevne fired a shot past Scott from the top of the right faceoff circle.
The power play came as a result of a too-many-men penalty following a botched line change by the Oil Kings.
“I thought we had a really good first period and Medicine Hat had a good push in the beginning of the second period, and we kind of got on our heals and we got that power-play goal, and then we had a really good finish to the second period and we carried it over into the third,” Lauer said.
“That was a credit to our veteran players. They really stepped up when we needed them.”
Medicine Hat appeared to have opened the scoring earlier in the period when Jevne buried a shot past Scott following a scramble in front of the net. The goal was disallowed, however, as Scott was interfered with by Tigers forward Ryan Chyzowski prior to the puck going into the net.
Scott kept the deficit to a goal with an outstanding glove save on Chyzowski eight minutes into the period. The save proved crucial for the Oil Kings, who went on to find an extra gear in the second half of the period.
They were awarded a power play of their own with 6:26 left in the period. After controlling the puck in the Tigers zone for the duration of the power play, Benjafield finally beat Sogaard with two seconds left in the man advantage to tie the game at 1-1.
Oil Kings defenceman Conner McDonald wired a shot from the point that was tipped by Benjafield and eluded Sogaard.
The Oil Kings increased their lead to 2-1 just over a minute later as Fyten was sent in alone down the left win and flipped a shot over Sogaard.
Just 40 seconds after that, Loschiavo scored to make it 3-1, tipping a shot from Trey Fix-Wolansky past Sogaard. The goal stood after being was reviewed for a possible high stick. In the third frame, Loschiavo extended the Oil Kings lead to 4-1 on the power play 7:31 into the period, one-timing a blast past Sogaard off a cross-ice pass from Benjafield.
Matthew Robertson added a fifth goal with nine minutes left in the game, cashing a dump-in off the glass that fooled Sogaard, who vacated his net anticipating having to play the puck behind his net.
The Oil Kings inserted forward Dylan Guenther, the first-overall pick in last summer’s WHL Bantam Draft, into the lineup for Game 4.
Guenther, 15, is eligible to play with the Oil Kings now that his season with the Northern Alberta X-Treme Prep team has concluded.
Fix-Wolansky picked up a pair of assists in the contest after being limited to one assist through the first three games of the series.
“We wanted to win two down here,” Lauer said. “But if you look at realistically we wanted to get the split and we did that and now it’s a best of three.”