Going seven
Tigers force Game 7 with road win Sunday
Medicine Hat Tigers' Matt Bradley puts the puck past Lethbridge Hurricanes' goaltender Stuart Skinner during Game 6 of second-round WHL playoff action Sunday at the Enmax Centre. Bradley had two goals, Steven Owre the game-winner and the Tigers won 5-2 to set up a decisive Game 7 at the Canalta Centre Tuesday.
LETHBRIDGE This series is now a best-ofone.
Facing elimination, the Medicine Hat Tigers downed the Lethbridge Hurricanes 5-2 during Game 6 of the teams’ WHL Eastern Conference semifinal Sunday night at the Enmax Centre.
With the win, the Tigers stay alive and bring Game 7 back to their Canalta Centre stomping grounds Tuesday for Game 7.
Taking advantage of some special teams, the Tigers power play went 3-for-6 and Matt Bradley scored twice as Medicine Hat posted the road win.
The Tigers opened the scoring on a 5-on-3 to start the game on a goal from Max Gerlach and struck for the game-winner with a man advantage goal from Steven Owre early in the third.
“The main thing is we’re going to have to respond,” said Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio, whose lineup was without defenceman Calen Addison, forwards Ryan Vandervlis, Zak Zborosky, Zane Franklin and Matt Alfaro and affiliated players Koltrane Wilson and Connor Lyons. “We haven’t done a lot of things easy this year and we’re going to have a great opportunity to go in there and win a series and that’s going to be the main focus. We were down 3-1 in the first round and we found a way to battle back. We’re going to have to find a way to get a road win. We’ve done it twice already, so there’s going to have to be a third time.”
The Tigers were handed an early two-minute 5-on-3 when Lethbridge’s Egor Babenko was called for crosschecking and Igor Merezhko was whistled down for checking from behind and Gerlach took advantage 5:13 into the game for a 1-0 lead.
The lead didn’t last long as Babenko scored his first of two during the period, going high on Tigers goaltender Michael Bullion to knot things up at 1-1 midway through the first.
The Canes founds themselves in more penalty trouble shortly afterwards and the Tigers pulled ahead as Bradley got his stick on a puck that arced through the air and past Hurricanes goaltender Stuart Skinner to make it 2-1 Medicine Hat.
The Hurricanes drew even before the first period was over on a man advantage marker of their own as Babenko netted his second of the game, finishing off a tictac-toe passing play from defenceman Brennan Menell and Tyler Wong to make it 2-2.
That’s the way it stayed until the third period until Owre capitalized on the man advantage with Jadon Joseph off for high sticking.
Bradley added his second of the game for the insurance marker 11:55 into the third before John Dahlstrom added an empty netter.
Wong felt his team put themselves in a good spot going into the third with the score tied.
“We took a dumb penalty and I think that was the story of the night,” he said. “The reffing was bad, obviously. But we gave them a chance to give calls on us. We talk about discipline and we talk about how good their power play is. They’ve done a good job of staying out of the box against us because we make them pay and the same goes for them. I think we have some guys that took bad penalties and that happens. We have to find a way to refocus and stay out of the box on Tuesday.”
Tigers head coach Shaun Clouston credited his team for keeping better composure in Game 6 to force Game 7.
“I thought it was a really strong game for our team,” he said. “I thought we had lots of guys contributing. I thought there was a good pace to the game. There was good energy. It was physical. I thought our composure was better than it has been in a couple of games. I thought we did a really good job of doing what we needed to do and not getting involved in the extra stuff. I think we were a little too wound up in our last home game and after a shaky start from our goaltender, I thought he was really good down the stretch.”
With Game 7 on the horizon, Clouston tipped his hat to both sides for taking the series down to the winner-take-all showdown.
“It’s quite a battle, isn’t it? Both teams are going hard and finding ways to get things done. When you look at the number of players Lethbridge had out of the lineup, it’s phenomenal what they’re doing. It’s phenomenal the buy-in and compete and structure from what I guess you could call the bottom half of their lineup and the mileage out of their top guys and the rest of the guys are just digging in.”
Kisio wasn’t about to play the injury card.
“Hey, it’s playoffs, guy get hurt, it is what it is. We have some great leadership in the room. They always respond and they’ll respond in this moment.”
“I feel like we have these highs and lows and have one great game and then a bad one the next time,” added Wong. “It seems like we’re looking a little bit past some games and I think we just need to have a short term outlook on what is coming up next and seize the moment.
“I think 5-on-5 we’re obviously the better team and I think that if we get back to what makes us successful, forechecking and outworking them and getting pucks out, is key. Tonight we just didn’t do that.”
Both teams will have today to catch their breath before Tuesday’s tilt.
“We’ll enjoy the trip home and get some sleep and meet tomorrow afternoon and have a few more things to say at that time. The message tonight was we did a really good job of managing the game and our emotions and doing the things we needed to do to give ourselves a chance.”
“We’ve been here,” said Kisio. “We’ve handled adversity well all year long and this is a a bit more.” We’ll make some adjustment we have to make and go from there.”