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Late goals sink Tigers in third straight loss

Feb 2, 2018 | 9:38 PM

VICTORIA, B.C. — Jimmy Hamblin went above and beyond, but a pair of late goals by the Victoria Royals handed the Medicine Hat Tigers their third straight loss.

Tyler Soy forced overtime with a late third period goal, and Noah Gregor finished it off in the extra frame, leading the Royals to a 4-3 victory over the visiting Tigers at Save-On-Foods Memorial Arena on Friday night.

Matthew Phillips and Kade Jensen also scored for the Royals, who pull withing two points of the Kelowna Rockets for first place in the B.C. Division with a 32-14-3-1 record.

Medicine Hat falls to 26-21-7-0 on the season, but remain first place in the Central Division by three points over the Lethbridge Hurricanes. Now losers of eight of the last 10, the Tigers will look to bump off their three-game slump with a victory in Vancouver to wrap up a four-game road trip Saturday night.

Hamblin, the Tabbies first round pick from the 2014 Bantam Draft, notched his 100th point with a powerplay marker to cut the Royals lead to 2-1 in the first period. 

The Edmonton-product followed up with his 101st tick by scoring his second goal of the night 6:28 into the second frame. That locked things up 2-2.

Kristians Rubins gave the Tabbies their first lead of the game crossing the midway mark of the second. The Riga, Latvian defenceman is now up to a career high six goals on the season.

Victoria was held off the scoresheet until Soy snuck a puck past Hollett with 1:19 to go in regulation. Soy finished the evening with two helpers for a three-point performance.

Locked 3-3 through 60 minutes of play, Gregor came through with the game winner 51 seconds into overtime. Gregor was awarded the game’s first star, with Hamblin taking second star honours and Dante Hannoun’s +4 rating on the evening rounding out the third star.

Jordan Hollett made 25 saves in the loss while rookie Dean McNabb stopped 27 in his fourth win of the season.