Tyler Lowey

Ice sweep holiday series over Hitmen

Not even the switch to the white jerseys at home could save the Calgary Hitmen from what was basically the worst-case scenario ending to a mini series with the Kootenay Ice.

Before the holiday break, the Hitmen opened up an organizational first, a four-game regular season series with the same team sandwiched around the annual trip from Santa Claus.

The Hitmen entered the series in fifth place in the Central Division, but only four points back of the Ice, who occupied the final divisional playoff spot.

The series began with the Ice downing the Hitmen 5-1 in Cranbrook Dec. 16. The following night at the Scotiabank Saddledome, the Hitmen allowed Alec Baer to net his 13th of the season in the latter stages of the third before eventually falling in overtime. Last night, Orca Wiesblatt saved the Hitmen with a goal late in regulation, only to see his team lose their fifth overtime game.

Tonight, it was late-game heroics again by the Ice, as they shaved the Hitmen 4-3 in regulation.

“These losses are very tough to take. We came in with them right ahead of us in the standings and a chance to come out with four wins and we got four losses,” said Hitmen alternate captain Mark Kastelic.

The latest loss to the Ice was the most gut wrenching, as the Hitmen were 1:50 away from salvaging another point in overtime, but coughed up a short-handed goal.

During one of the wildest penalty kills that featured end-to-end action, the Ice struck for the game winner.

Already with one breakaway on the penalty kill, Cameron Hausinger was sent in on a rush. He ended up losing his footing due to a Hitmen back check and slammed hard into the boards. Barely finding enough strength to get back into the play, he didn’t have the energy for another rush when the puck oddly came back to him in the neutral zone. He touched a pass up to Brett Davis, who skated in alone on Nick Schneider and beat him with a low wrister to all but seal the deal.

“That’s a tough one to swallow. We’ve got to take responsibility, be pros, keep our heads up and get back to work tomorrow,” said Hitmen Head Coach Dallas Ferguson.

The game-winning goal was in no way Schneider’s fault, despite getting outplayed during the four-game set by 17-year-old netminder Duncan McGovern.

“The guys were phenomenal tonight when I wasn’t my sharpest. They bailed me out with a few huge blocks in the third,” said McGovern, who didn’t see 30 shots once in all four games.

Schneider and McGovern went head-to-head all four games. Bailey Brkin was supposed to be between the pipes for the Ice tonight but was day-to-day with the flu.

McGovern outplayed the Calgary Flames prospect recording 72 saves and leaving with a .878 save percentage, compared to Schneider’s .835 save percentage over the four games.

“We really like his work ethic and his compete has been very good. He’s a young goalie and has a long way to go. He has had a lot of ups and downs, but he fights through them and has a positive influence in our dressing room. The guys love playing for him,” said Ice Head Coach James Patrick.

Since being acquired from Medicine Hat, McGovern has helped turn the Ice’s season around. The latest win runs his record to 7-3-1 this season to go with a shiny 2.70 goals against average.

The Hitmen (10-19-5-1) didn’t come out with the jump they needed to salvage the series against a team that showed up an hour late to the arena because of terrible winter conditions.

Puck drop was delayed 45 minutes as the Ice were rerouted on the way into town due to avalanche cleanup on Highway 3 just west of Creston.

There was no sense of urgency until Luke Coleman ignited the 9,034 in attendance with an impressive short-handed goal that temporarily gave the Hitmen the lead in the third period.

The four shots in the first period by the Hitmen didn’t result in any goals, but the scoreless game was broken open in the second period when Orca Wiesblatt bombed down the right wing flanked by centre Riley Stotts. Wiesblatt waited and rifled a shot past new and effective McGovern. Wiesblatt now has five goals in 21 games for the Hitmen this season, as his younger brother, Ozzy, scored one goal and four assists during the Calgary Buffaloes 15-1 whitewashing of the Carolina Jr. Hurricanes earlier today at the 40th annual Mac’s Midget AAA World Invitational Hockey tournament.

Michael King has been nearly as big of a problem as McGovern has been for the Hitmen this season.

King has feasted on the Hitmen through five games. He hasn’t put up the remarkable numbers as one does when they exert dominance over an opponent, but he notched his fifth point of the season in the second period when he sent a pass out from behind the net to Alec Baer, who was tangled up with Jackson van de Leest and had the puck go off his skate and in. The assist was King’s 10th of the season, meaning 50 per cent of his production has been at the Hitmen’s expense this season.
On the ensuing faceoff, Kastelic received the puck after a tight spin move from Andrei Grishakov and roofed the answering goal over the glove hand of McGovern 29 seconds later.

“We always have the next shift mentality because the next shift after a goal is huge. We tried to get it in their zone and get as many shots up as possible and I was lucky enough to put one past him,” said Kastelic, who is on pace for a career year in points.

Colton Veloso always seems to be in the thick of things when the Ice (17-17-2-0) are in town and he was buzzing early, chucking up three shots in the opening period, but was on the wrong side of some puck luck.

The Ice opened the third with a two-man advantage after the Central Division rivalry renewed itself with a few surprising combatants. Rookie stud Peyton Krebs and newly acquired Hitmen Dom Schmiemann being a few of them, but not new to the scene was Andrew Fyten, who picked up a double minor for roughing.

On the power play with a fresh sheet of ice, Krebs found Veloso wide open in the slot and he uncorked a bullet past Schneider for one of the two powerplay markers by the Ice.

As a team, the Ice entered this series with the league’s worst power play unit. Even with scoring six times over the four games, the Ice’s dismal power play still sits last at 14.8 per cent.

“There seems to be a theme to these games and it was back tonight; we have been taking too many penalties,” said Ferguson.

Over the four games, the Hitmen handed the Ice 26 power play chances.

Later in the third, it was Veloso from Krebs once again on the power play to tie the game at the 12:55 mark.

The Hitmen are not completely to blame for this shortcoming against a sub-500 playoff team. Since Dec. 11, they have been hamstrung by injuries on the blue line and have seen their top defensive unit been shipped off to compete in the World Junior Championship. As a result, the Hitmen have skated five blue liners born in the 2000s this series; a very young and inexperienced core by any measure.

One of the young blue liners is Luke Prokop, who, for the second time in the series was awarded his first career point in the WHL only to have it stripped from him upon further review during the intermission.

It was announced that Prokop picked up a secondary assist on Wiesblatt’s snipe in the second. During the second intermission, the goal was awarded to Jake Kryski.

Prokop had this misfortune happen to him last week against the Ice. He was originally given a secondary assist on a go-ahead goal by Andrew Fyten Dec. 17, but saw that taken away from him during the intermission, as the assist was changed to Stotts.

This was Prokop’s fifth game as a 15-year-old. Both Jake Bean and Vladislav Yeryomenko are weeks away from returning from the World Juniors, and so is Andrew Viggars who is working his way back from an upper-body injury. Jameson Murray is still listed as day-to-day, but even his return leaves the Hitmen with one spot on the blue line that needs to be filled by Prokop or Devan Klassen, who also made his WHL debut at the start of this series. The Hitmen are awaiting a league ruling to see if they can keep Prokop longer than the typically allowed five games.

Ferguson expressed that there is no time to dwell on this lost opportunity, as the Hitmen fell six points further behind the Ice compared to when they started this series. The Hitmen will have a quick turnaround and continue a stretch that started yesterday and sees them play 11 games in 18 days. Next on the list is a home date with the Lethbridge Hurricanes (15-17-2-0) Dec. 30. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. as the Hitmen begin to wrap up an eight-game swing against opponents from the Central, where they have gone 1-2-2-0.