Tabbies drop Saturday game against Edmonton
Søgaard stops career-high 41 shots but Oil Kings prevail in overtime
Mads Søgaard did all he could on Saturday night at the Canalta Centre.
The 17-year-old Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender stopped a career-high 41 shots to keep his team within striking distance of a victory, but Edmonton Oil Kings winger Brett Kemp spoiled Søgaard’s stellar performance with a 4-3 overtime game-winner.
“I saw the puck well, I felt confident,” said Søgaard, adding penalty trouble caught up with the Tigers this weekend. “I think we played a good game, we’ve just got to stay out of the box. It’s just as simple as that. We took way too many penalties.”
The Oil Kings dominated the early flow of action — outshooting Medicine Hat 18-6 in the opening frame — but they left the ice at intermission in a scoreless stalemate due to a sharp start from Søgaard.
“I got some early shots and they had an early power play and we survived that, so that kind of gave us some early confidence,” said Søgaard. “Not just me, but the whole lineup.”
The 6-foot-7 Dane went right back to work in the second, but Edmonton finally found a way past him on their fourth power play of the night.
Kemp picked up the tiebreaking tally by putting one over Søgaard’s shoulder and off the back bar of the net. The play went to review, though the call on the ice was quickly confirmed and Edmonton took over a 1-0 lead on their 26th shot of the contest.
“Their goalie is obviously unreal. We were thinking, he’s big so just get lots of shots and lots of traffic,” said Kemp. “We knew one would come sooner or later and we just kept pressuring them.”
The Tigers pushed their way back into the conversation three minutes later. After gaining a draw in the offensive zone, Ryan Chyzowski won a face-off back to Ryan Jevne and the overage winger ripped the puck through Oil Kings goaltender Dylan Myskiw to knot up the game after 40 minutes.
Tigers defenceman Trevor Longo snapped the tie six minutes into the final frame when he picked up a pass from Linus Nassen at the point and threw a puck through traffic for the first of his WHL career. James Hamblin also picked up an assist on the goal, pushing his point streak into double-digit territory with 16 points over the past 10 games.
But any momentum gained by the marker was immediately snuffed out when Tigers forwards Logan Christensen and Tyler Preziuso were nabbed for a pair of penalties on the same play — leaving Edmonton on a full two-minute 5-on-3 with an extra power play tacked on due to a high-sticking double-minor to Preziuso.
Vince Loschiavo converted 41 seconds into the advantage to even things back up, then Andrei Pavlenko struck again with 21 seconds remaining on Preziuso’s second penalty to reestablish Edmonton’s lead.
The Oil Kings quickly returned the favour when Kemp and Wyatt McLeod were booked on penalties just three seconds apart, and Hayden Ostir made sure they paid for their mistakes by cashing in with 18 seconds left in the two-man advantage.
“That was pretty crazy,” said Kemp. “I don’t even think I’ve been a part of two 5-on-3’s for each team in a game. Both teams took advantage of it, but we were lucky enough to come out on top.”
While the tally secured a point for Medicine Hat, Kemp struck for his second goal of the night just over one minute into overtime to lock up the victory for Edmonton.
“I thought we were battling hard. We took a few penalties and that sort of put us back but I thought in the end we battled and played our game,” said Ostir. “We’ve just got to find a way to have a bit more discipline and find a way to close that one out."
Myskiw stopped 25 in the win, pushing the Oil Kings to 12-7-1-1 on the year.
Medicine Hat fell to 9-8-1-2 with the overtime loss. The Tigers went 1-for-4 on the power play while allowing three goals on eight penalty kills.
“That’s the difference in the hockey game. If they go 2-for-6 or 1-for-4, we’re not in overtime,” said Tigers head coach Shaun Clouston. “That was the biggest disappointment. We were just careless and for two games in a row it’s been a concern.”
The Tigers hit the road to take on the Saskatoon Blades on Tuesday at 6 p.m.