Tigers falter in home opener, settle for series split against Lethbridge

Before the puck dropped however, Desjardins was given a warm welcome. Announced first in the player and coach introductions, Desjardins received a standing ovation by the Canalta Centre faithful in his return to the Tigers bench in the city he calls home.

“It’s a great town, so many good people in this city,” said Desjardins. “I think they’re good hockey fans too. They want us to do well and they’re die-hard, they live with their team. The one thing I’ve said is you can’t guarantee wins, but you can guarantee you’re going to work hard. So far, this team has worked pretty hard.”

His team wasn’t able to capitalize on that momentum early however, with Lethbridge’s Alex Cotton scoring in the slot off a beautiful backhand feed from rookie Zack Stringer less than four minutes into the contest.

Medicine Hat dominated the early shot totals, but Lethbridge’s Thomson closed the door to keep it a 1-0 game into the intermission.

A quiet second period was broken wide open by Noah Boyko with a little over one minute remaining in the frame. Boyko flipped the puck from his backhand onto his forehand and went top shelf on Søgaard to double the Hurricanes’ lead before the break.

“What they got, especially early on, we kind of gave to them,” said captain James Hamblin. “We need to work on that, our [defensive] zone hasn’t been the greatest. So, that’s going to be a key point in practice.”

The Tigers’ luck would finally turn in the third period with a holding penalty to Alex Thacker, sending the Tabbies to their third power play of the evening.

On the man advantage, a Cole Sillinger shot would be stopped but Ryan Chyzowski wouldn’t be denied on the rebound to cut Medicine Hat’s deficit in half with 10:13 remaining in regulation.

Oliver Okuliar would put all hope of a Tigers comeback away with 40 seconds remaining however, hitting the empty net to cap off the Hurricanes victory.

It was the second game in a row Medicine Hat fell behind in the first two periods and had to rely on their third period scoring, something that Chyzowski said needs to change.

“That’s obviously an issue right now we got to figure out,” said Chyzowski. “We can’t be putting ourselves in holes early. We couldn’t really come back from that one tonight, so it’s disappointing to see that we kind of went back to that again tonight. We got to play a little bit harder and not let them push us around as much.”

Søgaard was named the evening’s second star, making 23 saves in his first home start of the season.

“He’s been good both games,” said Desjardins. “Big guy, we’re going to rely on him a lot this year. He made a couple of saves that gave us a chance to get back in and we just couldn’t capitalize.”

Final attendance was listed at over 4,000 fans at the Canalta Centre, their third-highest attended game over the past two seasons trailing just last year’s regular season opener and finale.

Support that assistant captain Bryan Lockner heard right from the opening player introductions.

“It was a nice crowd out there, felt good,” said Lockner. “We heard them screaming as we were lining up, so it was pretty nice to see that. They were with us the whole night, wish we could have gave them a better performance.”

Leaving the ice with their first loss of the 2019-20 season, the 1-1 Tigers will look to regroup on Friday night with a home-and-home series kicking off against their new divisional rivals in Swift Current.

by Scott Roblin

Tigers falter in home opener, settle for series split against Lethbridge

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