Oil Kings strike yet again to end Hurricanes' season
The Edmonton Oil Kings are the first Eastern Conference team to make its way through to the second round of the Western Hockey League playoffs.
A 6-4 win over the Lethbridge Hurricanes in front of 2,386 at Enmax Centre on Thursday gave the Oil Kings a clean sweep of their first-round series.
They now await the winner between the Red Deer Rebels and Brandon Wheat Kings, who enter Game 5 on Friday knotted at two games apiece in their series.
For the Oil Kings, it was more about taking care of business than attempting to make any sort of statement to the rest of their league about their playoff intentions this year.
“I don’t know if it’s about making a statement, I think the biggest thing is our team expectations are extremely high for our group, and we know that,”
Oil Kings head coach Brad Lauer said. “But in saying that, they just don’t give you the wins and I think we understand the process of it. We know what we have in our locker-room, we have a good team. We’ve had a good team all year.
“But again, it’s a process. We have to understand that in order to be good, we have to do the right thing. So, we’ve done a good job this year but we’ve got to make sure that we continue on playing the right type of game, the team game, in order to have success. You only win if everybody’s doing the right things. So far we’ve done that.”
In a series that had been all Edmonton, all the time over the first three games, all Oil Kings’ victories, Lethbridge used the wall their backs were up against in Game 4 as leverage to open the scoring and take their first lead of the 2022 Western Hockey League playoffs.
Just 63 seconds in, Alex Thacker jammed a sliding puck over the goal-line with a crowd of prone Oil Kings piled in the crease, including goalie Sebastian Cossa, who faced just 17 shots compared to 47 at the other end.
Edmonton evened it up with a goal from, who else, Dylan Guenther, who snapped in an offering from Justin Sourdif, setting up a one-timer from the corner, with a shot that bounced off the post and in off of Bryan Thompson’s left skate.
That gave Guenther, who led the Oil Kings with 45 goals and 91 points in the regular season, a goal in each of the four playoff games against the Hurricanes.
But Lethbridge would retake a rare lead into the second period after captain Joe Arntsen, trailing in the high slot, snapped a crossing pass from Jett Jones over Cossa’s blocker and in off the post at 17:47.
Edmonton found themselves on the man-advantage early in the second period, but it was Lethbridge who nearly cashed in when Brayden Edwards feathered the puck ahead to Justin Hall alone in front of the crease for a quick shot that was steered clear by Cossa.
That sent the Oil Kings the other way, where Simon Kubicek fanned on a shot that ended up being deflected by Carter Souch, who was then able to bat in his own rebound before Thompson could snag it out of thin air. The goal, which tied the score 2-2, came with 13 seconds left on the power play.
Edmonton took its first lead of the night 11:19 into the second period, after Noah Chadwick collided with Hurricanes teammate Kade Nolan to free up some space for Oil Kings rookie Dawson Seitz, who sent the puck under Thompson’s glove for his first playoff goal.
But Lethbridge answered right back with an unassisted goal by Tyson Laventure, who picked off a puck Edmonton tried chipping up the boards and out of their end, only to see a long shot fired the other way that fooled Cossa to knot the score 3-3. It was the 11th shot the Oil Kings goalie faced.
The final frame opened with Tyler Horstmann banking in a long shot of his own in off Hurricanes defender Logan Mccutcheon.
Hall tied in up for Lethbridge once again, cleaning up a rebound sitting in the crease following a shot by Yegor Klavdiev with 4:13 remaining. But the lifeline was short-lived as 40 seconds later, Josh Williams scored the game winner on the power play. Jakub Demek added another into an empty net with 10 seconds left.
Whatever the Hurricanes gave up in skill against the Central Division champion Oil Kings, they looked to make up for with physicality throughout the short series.
“That’s part of the game. That’s playoff hockey, is the emotional part of the game and being hard on guys and trying to get the upside physically and I think our guys have done a good job,” Lauer said. “We’ve got a big heavy team too and it’s nothing we’re unfamiliar with. For our group, it’s just maintaining composure in those areas, play hard between the whistles and don’t get too frustrated with stuff after the whistle.
“That’s one thing about winning early if you can, you get that rest which is always needed down the road.”
In and out: While he ended up taking the warm-up Thursday, Lethbridge product John Szabo didn’t get a chance to play in front of friends and family in his hometown, getting scratched in favour of fellow Oil Kings forward Horstmann, who came up his first playoff goal.