(Edmonton, AB) To say that a goaltender gave a team fits when they won only one of six regular season games, may seem like an exaggeration. But that was exactly what Medicine Hat’s Mads Sogaard did to the Edmonton Oil Kings in the regular season. He made games where the Tigers were getting badly outshot much closer.
Saturday night in Edmonton, the 6-foot-7 goaltender turned away 49 shots and led his squad to a 2-1 win in Game 1 of their best-of-seven series with the Oil Kings.
James Hamblin and Hayden Ostir had the goals for Medicine Hat, while former Tiger Josh Williams potted the lone marker for Edmonton.
In net for the Oil Kings, Dylan Myskiw kept his team close with several strong saves in the second and third period and stopped 25-of-27.
Edmonton had the run of play for the first part of the first period, owning 11 of the game’s first 15 shots, but Medicine Hat responded and shots ended 13-9 after 20 minutes.
“Mads played a hell of a game. They executed their game plan. The chances we gave them, they executed on and they played a good game,” Williams told oilkings.ca
Oil Kings captain Trey Fix-Wolansky continued. “We kind of started a little flat but got better as the game went on. Hot goalie and we did not bury on our chances.”
Just over four minutes into the second period and with the Oil Kings on the man advantage, the Tigers got the first goal in the series. Hamblin drove hard at Edmonton’s defense and dished the puck on the rush to Tyler Preziuso before getting it back and beating Myskiw.
Later in the second, Medicine Hat scored off the rush. Ostir tallied after taking a feed from Logan Christensen on a 3-on-2 rush and putting a wrist shot by Myskiw’s blocker for the 2-0 Tigers lead.
In the third period, Edmonton first had to fend off the hard charging Tigers to start then tilted the ice as they tried to draw close.
Williams finally broke the Sogaard shutout attempt with only 2:02 left as he followed up a shot by Matthew Robertson.
Sogaard would allow no more pucks by and made an incredible stop on Fix-Wolansky with just 22 seconds left and the Tigers on the power play with their goalie pulled.
Game Notes:
-Edmonton was 0-for-3 on the power play and Medicine Hat was 0-for-1. The Tigers, of course, got a shorthanded goal.
-Edmonton’s Quinn Benjafield had seven shots on goal to lead both teams and Christensen and Hamblin each had four for the Tigers.
-Hamblin was 11-for-24 at the faceoff dot, Ryan Chyzowski was 9-of-20 and Christensen was 6-for-15.
-For Edmonton, Andrew Fyten was 18-for-29, Scott Atkinson was 11-of-16, Vince Loschiavo went 7-for-14 and Liam Keeler went 4-for-11.
