The Medicine Hat Tigers are sporting a rather lofty batting average.
The Tigers created roughly 20 solid scoring chances with their 46 shots through the first two games of their WHL Eastern Conference semifinal versus the Red Deer Rebels and cashed in 14 times. Take away the three soft goals they potted against Rebels netminder Darcy Kuemper and that’s 17 scoring opportunities.
The Rebels? One goal on 70 shots.
The Tigers, up 2-0 in the set following Saturday’s 5-0 win before 6,091 fans at the Centrium, have been miles ahead of their foes in terms of their execution, but they’ve also been the benefactors of some amazing good fortune.
For example, video shows that the play leading to the visitors’ first goal Saturday was blatantly offside, with a Tigers player still five to six feet inside the Red Deer blueline when his teammate crossed with the puck. The linesmen initially raised his arm, then waved it off.
In the middle stanza, referee Trevor Hanson called separate roughing penalties on Brett Ferguson and Byron Froese. Neither call was justified, and of course the Tigers scored on both.
To top off the Rebels’ frustrating evening, they outshot their guests 33-21, including 12-4 in the first period and 13-5 in the final frame.
“That first one was a tough goal and those things just seem to be happening right now,” Rebels head coach/VP of hockey operations Jesse Wallin said Sunday, referring to the non-call at the Rebels blueline that led to Hunter Shinkaruk’s marker 16:13 into the contest.
“What I didn’t like is that in the second period we kind of backed off and got feeling sorry for ourselves a little bit. I also didn’t like the calls on Fergy and Froese. But we’ve dealt with that all year. Every night you have a couple penalties that you’re not going to like and normally we do a good job of killing those off. I thought we didn’t have that sense of urgency to get into shooting lanes and get it done on our penalty kill. We allowed them to score a little too easily.”
Jace Coyle’s power-play point shot deflected off teammate Cole Grbavac for a 2-0 Tigers lead at 8:48 of the second period, and Linden Vey scored on a breakaway six minutes later. Emerson Etem upped the count to 4-0 with another man-advantage tally in the final minute of the frame and Grbavac, who now has seven playoff goals after potting 13 in 67 regular-season games, closed out the scoring 62 seconds into the third period.
Tigers netminder Tyler Bunz continued to live up to his reputation as a Rebels killer, but the Rebels didn’t help matters with their dreary zero-for-nine power play.
“Our penalty killers did a really good job tonight,” said Tigers head coach Shaun Clouston, “and we relied on Tyler Bunz a few times. I thought our guys battled really hard in front of the net.
“Sometimes it’s not the number of shots but the quality. On the flip side of that, Tyler made some key saves at important times of the game. That was a big part of it.”
On the occasions that the penalty box was vacant, the Rebels were the better team for the most part.
“I really thought five-on-five that we played well. I thought we carried the play through the entire first period,” said Wallin. “We had some real good chances and really just couldn’t catch a break.
“I think we’re gripping our sticks a bit right now. Bunz played well, no question, but as I said to the guys this morning, what’s real important for us right now is to stay the course and believe in ourselves and really band together.”
Wallin compared the Rebels’ current plight to that of the 2002 Detroit Red Wings, who dropped the first two games of their opening-round series with the Vancouver Canucks at home before rebounding to win the next four contests.
“Those two first games in that series were very similar to these two,” said Wallin, a former Wings defenceman. “It just seemed like nothing could go right, that anything that could go wrong did go wrong. The experience and leadership of that (Detroit) team came through and it was just a matter of staying the course and believing you’re a good team.
“When you stay the course you earn your break. We need to stay with it and have something go our way so we can get that little bit of life and settle in and play.”
An improved power play would help, as would slipping a few pucks past Bunz, who is clearly in the Rebels’ heads.
“I thought we played real well again in the third period last night. We had a number of opportunities but just couldn’t buy a goal,” said Wallin.
As for the struggling power play . . .
“We didn’t move the puck well at times and our execution wasn’t there, but having said that we did generate some opportunities on the power play but guys were shooting it right at his (Bunz’) crest where normally we’re capitalizing on those chances,” said Wallin.
“We haven’t capitalized on our opportunities and they’ve capitalized on just about every opportunity they’ve had. We just need to catch that break so we can relax, loosen up a bit and settle in. That’s what happened to that Detroit team and I think that can happen to us. We just have to stay the course and wait for that break to happen.”
Games 3 and 4 of the series are Tuesday and Wednesday at Medicine Hat. A fifth game, if necessary, will be played Saturday at the Centrium.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com