Candice Ward Photography

Hitmen finish comeback, Peters picks up first win of season

The second of six meetings between the Medicine Hat Tigers and Calgary Hitmen featured a Medicie Hat team with four straight wins coming into the evening. The Hitmen, on the other hand, just snapped a two-game winless drought at home on Saturday against Moose Jaw. The visiting Tigers were impressive early with the club’s top six forwards producing for the lead. For Calgary, it was the big guns and rookie goalie Brayden Peters who stole the show and ultimately fueled the Hitmen to a big comeback win.

The first period in this Central Division matchup was one of speed as the Medicine Hat Tigers showed up to play and displayed their top end skating and skillset early on. Despite the Hitmen producing the majority of the quality opportunities early, it was Medicine Hat that opened the scoring. 16-year-old Cole Sillinger was the goal scorer that broke the tie just 1:07 into the game when Brett Kemp left a beautiful between-the-legs pass for Sillinger who snuck it past Jack McNaughton.

Just under five minutes later, Calgary found penalty problems when James Malm took a high-sticking call before Josh Prokop was sent off for tripping 50 seconds later. Although the Tigers struggled to find tempo on the man advantage initially, Ryan Chyzowski sent a puck top corner past Jack McNaughton for a power-play goal and 2-0 lead.  The Kamloops product Chyzowski was not done just yet as he broke down the wing and roofed a puck glove-hand corner once again on Jack McNaughton for yet another power-play goal just over a minute after his last.

Brayden Peters took over the crease at this point as the Hitmen were faced with a three-goal deficit to overcome. With under a minute remaining in the first, after a pair of undisciplined penalties to each team, Jackson Van De Leest tallied his first of the year off a hard snap shot from the high slot that whizzed past Mads Sogaard.

The Van De Leest goal that ended the first proved to be a serious swing of momentum in favour of the Hitmen. After a failed power play early in the second frame, Carson Focht was able to bank a puck off Mads Sogaard and in to cut the lead to one after Orca Wiesblatt caused an offensive zone turnover. Under two minutes after the Focht goal, James Malm and Mark Kastelic teamed up behind the Medicine Hat goal before Kastelic jammed the puck into the net on the glove-hand side of Sogaard to tie the game at three. Malm also reached the 200 point milstone on the Kastelic goal, 66 of which have come with the Hitmen. With tensions and physicality starting to ramp up, the second ended tied at three with Sogaard and Peters both making significant saves later in the period.

The third frame started very differently from the other two periods as game pace was slower with many more whistles interrupting the first four minutes. That changed when Jonas Peterek found a streaking Mark Kastelic who tapped the puck in just before knocking the net off for a 4-3 lead for Calgary 4:52 into the period. This goal provided a massive jolt for the Hitmen as Riley Stotts tallied his fourth of the season just 1:05 later. With under half the period remaining, Stotts provided further insurance when he tapped in a Sean Tschigerl rebound for his second of the afternoon. The goal led to a goalie change for Medicine Hat as Garin Bjorklund came on in relief of Sogaard. Despite a few late offensive bursts from the Tigers, Brayden Peters proved unsolvable through his 51:52 played.

Jackson Van De Leest and Brayden Peters. Photo: Candice Ward Photography

Although Jackson Van De Leest’s goal turned out to be a huge step for the Hitmen, the hulking defenseman, who had a goal and two assists in the game, took no credit and said postgame, “I think we had a great regroup in the first intermission, and we felt that we had kind of had enough, and we decided to flip the switch. It was important for us to get our competitive nature going and lay some body and definitely play a more complete game.” Van De Leest picked up the third star honours with his performance while Mark Kastelic was named first. Brayden Peters was the game’s second star.

Head coach Steve Hamilton also praised his club’s effort after the slow start, along with Peters’ performance, saying, “A good rally point for our team was to play hard in front of Petey (Brayden Peters) and give him an opportunity, and he gave us a handful of massive saves that we needed.”

The Hitmen will take to the road for the next game when they play host to the Moose Jaw Warriors before heading to Regina to play in the WHL Prairie Classic held in Mosaic Stadium.

The Hitlist:

  • In Brayden Peters’ first appearance this season, the rookie goalie saved all 26 shots he faced while recording an assist and 2 PIM in 51:52 between the pipes.
  • Egor Zamula hit a career-high streak of 9 games scoring at least a point with four goals and nine helpers over that span.
  • The Hitmen are now 2-0-0 against Medicine Hat this year, outscoring the Tigers 8-3.