Hitmen 4 Hurricanes 2
The Calgary Hitmen have the Lethbridge Hurricanes on the brink of elimination after a 4-2 win Tuesday in second round Western Hockey League playoff action.
The Hitmen lead the Eastern Conference semifinal 3-0 and an advance to the third round with a win in Game 4 Wednesday in Lethbridge.
“It’s definitely not the result we wanted,” said Hurricanes defenceman Mitch Versteeg, who scored one of the two Lethbridge goals.
“We definitely didn’t want to go down 3-0. We just have to stay more consistent and play a full game.”
The Hitmen hit the board first when Kris Foucault shovelled a rebound past Hurricanes netminder Juha Metsola on the power play at 12:03 of the opening period.
“We knew they would be coming out hard in the first period being in their own barn,” said Hitmen defenceman Keith Seabrook.
“It’s always tough playing in our barn with all our fans there. We knew it was going to be tough early and we knew we had to give a little extra effort and we were lucky.
“We caught a few lucky bounces and we went from there.”
Rockets 7 Americans 2
Jamie Benn’s four-point night on home ice helped the Rockets climb back into their series against Tri-City.
Benn scored a goal and added three assists as Kelowna crushed the Americans 7-2 in WHL playoff action Tuesday night at Prospera Place.
After losing the first two games of the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal with sub-par play, both one-goal losses, the Rockets now trail 2-1.
Kelowna hopes to pull even in the series when they host Game 4 today.
At Kelowna, B.C., Mikael Backlund, Stepan Novotny, Cody Almond, Ian Duval, Tyler Myers and Lucas Bloodoff also scored for Kelowna.
Justin Feser and Zach Yuen replied for Tri-City, which trailed 2-0 and 6-1 at the period breaks.
Chiefs 5 Giants 2
At Spokane, Wash., Drayson Bowman scored a goal and assisted on two others to lead the Chiefs past Vancouver.
Levko Koper, Jared Spurgeon, Justin McRae and Trevor Glass had the other goals for the Chiefs, who trail the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series 2-1 and host the next game tonight.
Jonathon Blum and Lance Bouma scored in the first period for Vancouver.