Medicine Hat goaltender Garin Bjorklund (right) making one of his 36 saves on Tuesday against Regina Pats star Connor Bedard (centre) as part of the Tigers' come from behind 5-4 win in a shootout (Photo courtesy Randy Feere / Medicine Hat Tigers)

By Scott Roblin

5-4 Tigers Win

Tigers battle all the way back to stun Regina in a shootout

Mar 15, 2022 | 11:22 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – As the Medicine Hat Tigers left the ice for the second intermission trailing 4-2 to the Regina Pats, it was like the air had been sucked out of their tires.

Four straight goals against had seen the Pats take all the momentum into the third frame, a situation where the Tigers had struggled at before Tuesday’s contest at Co-Op Place.

But the black and orange never said die, scoring twice in the third including a Brendan Lee marker with 4.9 seconds remaining to force extra time before taking down Regina 5-4 in a shootout for the comeback victory.

Tuesday’s thrilling win ended a three-game slide for Medicine Hat, who earned their first victory of the year against the Pats to avoid the season-series sweep.

Medicine Hat jumped out to a 1-0 lead just over seven minutes into the contest, with Teague Patton throwing a cross-ice feed to Pavel Bocharov for the tape-to-take set up for the Tigers defender’s third of the season.

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Holding onto that one-goal lead in the second frame and on the power play, Medicine Hat doubled its lead off a Lee one-timer set up by Logan Barlage and Tyler MacKenzie.

It was Lee’s first game back in action since February 23 when he suffered a lower-body injury in Regina, scoring to make it a 2-0 game 7:17 into the middle period.

Regina needed just 32 seconds to get that goal back however, with Cole Dubinsky cutting his way into the slot with some nifty moves and potting his 16th of the year on the backhand.

Pats star Connor Bedard hopped on his team’s offensive breakout not long after, receiving a feed from Zack Stringer all alone in front of the net and going top-shelf on the backhand to extend his point streak to 18 games.

With 5:40 remaining before the intermission, Regina took their first lead of the night as Bedard took advantage of a delayed penalty against the Tigers and threw the puck into the slot for Tanner Howe for the go-ahead marker.

That was followed up less than a minutes afterwards by a Pats odd-man rush which saw Bedard distribute the puck across to Stanislav Svozil to make it a 4-2 lead for the visitors at the break.

Following their less than ideal second period, the Tigers came out firing in the third with Steven Arp tipping a Josh Van Mulligen point shot past Drew Sim with 12:11 remaining in regulation to cut the deficit to one.

With Garin Bjorklund on the bench for the extra attacker late, Medicine Hat kept firing the puck on net with the Pats getting in the shooting lanes consistently before Lee finally buried his second of the night just before the buzzer to send it to overtime.

Regina came close to ending it in OT as Cole Carrier hit iron on a shot off the wing, while the Tigers were unable to capitalize on a late power play to see the game head to a shootout.

Andrew Basha and Logan Barlage were both able to find the back of the net for Medicine Hat in the shootout, with Barlage’s game-winner sending the Tigers over the boards to complete the comeback.

Bjorklund made 36 saves for Medicine Hat and was a key contributor between the pipes down the stretch, while Sim was tagged with the loss with an 18-save night.

The Tigers were unable to play with Gleb Ivanov on Tuesday night, as he served a one-game suspension handed down by the WHL after an elbowing major against the Red Deer Rebels back on Saturday.

Medicine Hat will look to ride the high into a home-and-home series against the Swift Current Broncos this upcoming weekend, which kicks off in Saskatchewan on Friday night at 7:00 pm.