|
Written by Dale Woodard
|
|
Monday, March 30 2009, 11:43 PM |
Next win, wins it all.
The Lethbridge Hurricanes had the chance to put the Saskatoon Blades out of the playoff picture during Game 6 of the teams’ first round Western Hockey League series Monday night at the Enmax Centre.
One 5-1 loss to the Blades later, they didn’t.
Instead, the Blades stayed alive, knotting the series at 3-3 and forcing the winner-take -all seventh game Wednesday night in Saskatoon.
“We knew our only option was to win a hockey game and we played extremely hard for the most part in this series and we’re going to have to continue to do that Wednesday night back in Saskatoon,” said Blades head coach Lorne Molleken. “The biggest thing is we paid a price tonight, and that’s what you have to do.”
The shots on goal in the first period were close as Saskatoon outshot Lethbridge 13-11, but it was the visitors that carted a 2-0 lead into the first intermission as Milan Kytnar and Teigan Zahn bulged the mesh.
“I thought we showed a bit of nerves and with the nerves we made some poor decisions,” said Hurricanes head coach Mike Dyck. “That was the first time I’ve seen that with our team in a long time.”
The Hurricanes pulled to within one 44 seconds into the second while shorthanded when Drew Hoff capitalized on a gaffe at the Lethbridge blueline and broke in alone, stuffing a forehand shot past Blades netminder Braden Holtby to make it 2-1.
However, Saskatoon snagged the momentum right back a little over eight minutes later when Josh Nicholls drained his first of the post season for a 3-1 lead.
“It’s huge,” said Molleken of his team’s third goal. “I think any time in a series like this where you can go up two goals it’s huge. I thought our guys simplified their game to a point where we did a good job. Braden was outstanding for us tonight.”
“We came out with a lot of energy, but I guess we didn’t use that energy to our advantage,” said Hoff. “We weren’t playing smart. We were making mistakes at the start and after that goal it sparked us for a bit and then that play behind the net (when) they got the goal took the momentum away from us again.”
A slew of penalties in the latter stages of the game put Lethbridge down a man and Saskatoon capitalized twice more as former ’Can Adam Chorneyko made it 4-1 before Nicholls added his second of the night to round out the scoring.
The treks to the sin bin didn’t have Dyck worried.
“I had concerns about the officiating,” he said. “I thought it was pretty one-sided at the end, but I have no concerns with our discipline.”
Holtby turned aside 26 of 27 shots to earn the win.
“As you see, he’s a top goalie in the league,” said Zahn. “We get beat one-on-one and he’s there to bail us out. They’ve got some skilled players in Boychuk, Sceviour and King. They’re a big line and Holts was there to shut the door on them.”
“I think you have to give them credit, they played well,” said Dyck.
“They played a pretty solid win and deserved to win.”
Now it’s down to 60 minutes for the right to advance to the second round.
The fact the series has come down to a seventh game drew no surprise on either side.
“First and foremost we knew it was going to be a long, tough battle and that’s what it’s turned out to be,” said Molleken. “It’s a one-game series now and we’ve worked all year long to have home ice advantage, so we’re hoping that pays off.”
“It comes down to three periods,” said Dyck. “We’ll get ourselves ready to go for Wednesday night. We knew it was going to be a long series.”
Hoff said Wednesday is just another hockey game.
“Everyone on this has gone deep in the playoffs. (Eric) Mestery and I coming in Tri-City, we bring a lot of experience, too.
“It’s important we get the guys ready and make sure they’re not too nervous and just play our game.”
|
