TIGERS
Tabbies drop game to Oil Kings
Mads Søgaard was one save shy of stealing the show on Saturday night at the Canalta Centre.
The 18-year-old Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender stopped 32 shots in his first game since returning from the IIHF World Junior Championship with Denmark, but the Edmonton Oil Kings just managed to squeak away with a 2-1 overtime victory thanks to Vince Loschiavo’s sudden death gamewinner.
“It was a tremendous effort,” said Tigers head coach Shaun Clouston. “He was big all night and he was huge in the third. We don’t get the point if he doesn’t play as well as he did.”
The matchup also served as Brett Kemp’s first game against his former Oil Kings, as well as Josh Williams’ first outing against the Tigers following a transaction between the two teams at Thursday’s trade deadline, but both young forwards were held off the scoresheet in the defensively wrought battle.
“It was pretty crazy,” said Kemp. “Those guys are my best friends, guys I’ve been there for two years with. It was pretty fun to play out there with them but it was also pretty nerve wracking too.”
“It was probably the most fun game I’ve had all year,” added Williams. “It was weird, for sure, warming up on this side of the ice for the first time ever besides training camp, and playing against all your friends that you’ve had for the last year and a half.”
Tyler Preziuso gave Medicine Hat an early lead when he parked himself in front of the net and deflected a shot from Linus Nassen past Oil Kings netminder Dylan Myskiw just as Edmonton’s Trey Fix-Wolansky stepped out of the box after serving a hooking minor.
The penalties kept coming, with seven minors handed out in the opening frame, but Myskiw settled into his crease and Søgaard held steady with nine saves in the first to keep Medicine Hat in front at the break.
“It felt good to be back with the Tigers and just getting in a game here,” said Søgaard. “The only thing I really had to adjust to was playing the puck behind the net. We have some structure and some lanes here that we want to do, and it’s a bit different from the national team.”
The Oil Kings fought back into the contest midway through the second when Andrew Fyten found David Kope in front from behind the net to even things up entering the third period.
Edmonton continued to push the pace into the third. While Søgaard refused to give up the lead with nine saves in the frame to force overtime, Loschiavo finally beat the big Dane over the blocker three minutes into sudden death to secure the victory.
“We had a lot of opportunities but didn’t get a whole lot of traction. Edmonton did a tremendous job in the neutral zone and we didn’t do what we needed to do to get the puck into the offensive zone enough,” said Clouston.
“When we did get into the O-zone we got real fancy. We started doing things I haven’t seen for a long time — trying cross-ice seams that were two-three feet in the air, we were trying saucer passes and missing and getting stuff picked off, turning pucks over. We could have made a big difference there, so we’re going to have to address that and be better next time.”
Myskiw collected the win on 20 saves, pushing the Oil Kings to 2314-4-3 on the year.
Medicine Hat fell to 23-162-2 with the loss.
“Beating your friends at anything is always a great time,” said Williams. “It was a really good game for us.”
The Tigers return to the Canalta Centre on Wednesday to host the Oil Kings in a rematch at 7 p.m.
“That’s a game we want to win,” said Søgaard. “We just want to make the most of the (chances) we have. We didn’t tonight so we’re going to work hard in practice then come back and give our best to Edmonton.”