Medicine Hat blows out Brandon in opener

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This article was published 23/03/2018 (2222 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. — Unfortunately for the Brandon Wheat Kings, history sometimes has a way of repeating itself.

One year after beating the Wheat Kings 7-2 to open their Eastern Conference quarter-final series, the Medicine Hat Tigers dominated thier visitors with another 7-2 victory at Canalta Centre on Friday.

Game 2 in their best-of-seven series will take place in Medicine Hat on Sunday at 7 p.m.

Ryan Jevne, Cole Clayton, Mark Rassell, Ryan Chyzowski, Gary Haden, Bryan Lockner and Kristians Rubins scored for the Tigers as they tallied on the power play, short-handed and playing four-on-four. Many of the goals were due to grievous giveaways and ill-advised penalties by Brandon.

Luka Burzan and James Shearer replied for the Wheat Kings.

Brandon head coach David Anning said hsi group played well in spots but simply wasn’t good enough.

“I thought we did some things fairly well and I thought we had opportunities,” Anning said. “I didn’t think we executed well enough to capitalize on our scoring chances and ultimately our mistakes were costly. I felt that we made some big mistakes and they were able to capitalize on those mistakes. Specialty teams played a factor in the outcome. We needed to be better on the penalty kill and we needed our power play to gain us some momentum and we didn’t see that.

“For me, it was a game that they capitalized on our mistakes and we didn’t make the most of our chances.”

After Baron Thompson took a kneeing penalty, Medicine Hat scored on the ensuing power play. Former Wheat King Jaeger White sent a nice cross-ice pass to Jevne, who hammered it home 10 minutes 32 seconds into the first period. Anning argued that Thompson was tripped by a Tigers player prior to the shot but to no avail, with the referees ruling that the player was pushed into the goalie.

Just 21 seconds later, a shot bounced off a player out front and over the stick of Brandon forward Rylan Bettens to Clayton, who scored on a slapshot through heavy traffic.

Three minutes later, the Tigers made it 3-0 when rookie Ben McCartney took a slashing penalty behind the Medicine Hat net and Rassell scored on the ensuing power play.

Brandon had a possible goal reviewed after the puck hit the iron and bounced off the back of Medicine Hat starting goalie Jordan Hollett. Hollett was able to dive back and scoop up the puck before it crossed the goal-line.

But moments later, Cole Reinhardt made a pretty backhand pass from behind the net out front to Burzan, who sent it by Hollett with 2:24 remaining in the opening frame.

Three minutes into the second period, with the teams playing four-on-four, Chyzowski danced around a hit attempt by Brandon captain James Shearer and fired a puck from the slot by Thompson.

When things are going bad, they have an odd waiting of snowballing. Connor Gutenberg tripped on the Medicine Hat blue-line after the puck was sent over to him on a power play, and Rassell scooped it up, sent it over to Haden after defenceman Zach Wytinck stumbled trying to intercept the puck.

When Lockner scored on another two-on-one to make it 6-1, that signalled the end of Logan Thompson’s night, with Dylan Myskiw entering the game.

Rubins scored the Tigers’ seventh goal on a rebound when Myskiw couldn’t corral the puck. Shearer answered late in the period on a power-play blast from the point.

Anning said the message to his team was simple.

“We need to recognize where we fell short tonight,” Anning said. “That was in execution, capitalizing on our opportunities and making sure that we did a good job with the puck overall. We had guys who can be better for sure and we need them to be better on Sunday. Our group will stick together and our sole focus is on Sunday night.”

Thompson and Myskiw made 18 saves for the Wheat Kings, with Hollett stopping 33 shots for the Tigers.

Brandon went 0-for-7 on the power play, with Medicine Hat scoring twice in four chances.

ICINGS: Brandon was without injured forward Jonny Hooker and healthy scratches F Gunnar Wegleitner, D Ty Ettinger and G Ethan Kruger … Medicine Hat scratched F James Hamblin (broken wrist, out for playoffs), F Mason Shaw, D Joel Craven, F Trevor Longe and F Dawson Heathcote … Rubins and Rassell each had a pair of assists … Gutenberg won eight of his 13 draws. Chyzowski won 11-of-22 for the Tigers. Brandon won 30-of-57 faceoffs overall … The series shifts to Dauphin’s Credit Union Centre on Tuesday and Wednesday for Games 3 and 4 … Shearer and Stelio Mattheos led Brandon with five shots on net each. Reinhardt had four for the Wheat Kings.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

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