Hurricanes Drop Dairy Queen Home Opener 5-3 to the Hitmen
Lethbridge, AB – The Lethbridge Hurricanes opened the 2025-2026 regular season on Friday with a 5-3 loss to the Calgary Hitmen at the VisitLethbridge.com Arena in the Dairy Queen Home Opener.
Lethbridge entered the game having won their previous four home openers. The ‘Canes had a total of seven players make their team debut, four of which made their WHL debuts. It was a good start for the Hurricanes who kept the Hitmen pinned in their own zone for the first three minutes but were unable to solve Anders Miller to open the scoring. Calgary struck first on a power play at the 7:47 mark when Kale Dach netted his first WHL goal on a bouncing puck in front of the net to make it a 1-0 Hitmen lead; Ethan Moore and Ty Hynes earned the assists on the goal. The Hitmen doubled their lead just under three-minutes later when Lethbridge product Rylan Ng slipped home his first goal of the season – and third career goal against his hometown team – to make it 2-0. Calgary outshot Lethbridge 10-5 in the period and continued to pepper the ‘Canes as Andrei Molgachev hit a pair of goal posts in the frame as the Hitmen held a 2-0 lead after twenty minutes of play.
Early in the second period, Moglachev ripped a shot off the goal post again – his third of the game – as the Hitmen continued to lead by two. Just after the midway point of the period, the ‘Canes found sound life in the game when Hudson Kibblewhite redirected an Easton Daneault shot through the legs of Miller cutting the lead to 2-1 with his first as a Hurricanes; Luke Cozens picked up the second assist. Before the end of the period, the ‘Canes pulled even with a buzzer-beating shorthanded goal by Kibblewhite to one-timed home a pass from Chase Petersen with 0.7-seconds left in the period to tie the game 2-2 after forty minutes. Lethbridge countered in the second period outshooting Calgary 10-5 as the shots were tied 15-15 after two periods.
Calgary broke the tie 2-2 tie at the 6:01 mark of the third period when Molgachev finally broke through ripping a wrist shot over the blocker of Koen Cleaver who made his first opening night start to make it a 3-2 goal with a power play goal; Dach and Hunter Aura picked up the helpers on the goal. Molgachev struck again 3:41 later potting his second goal of the game giving the Hitmen a 4-2 advantage. Lethbridge answered back at the 16:57 mark when Carson Olsen wired home his first WHL goal beating Miller over the blocker to cut the Calgary lead to 4-3; Will Scott and Shane Smith picked up the assists on the goal. The Hurricanes pulled the goaltender late in the game for the extra-attacker and came close to tying the game with a goal mouth scramble, but eventually the Hitmen sealed the victory with an empty-net goal by Shaun Hildebrandt to give Calgary a 5-3 opening night win.
The Hurricanes were outshot 25-23 in the game by the Hitmen. Lethbridge went 1/5 with the power play while Calgary was 2/5 with the extra man.
Three stars of the game were:
1) Hitmen – #8 Andrei Molgachev (2 goals)
2) ‘Canes – #22 Hudson Kibblewhite (2 goals)
3) Hitmen – #22 Kale Dach (1 goal, 1 assist)
The loss for the Hurricanes marks the first time since the COVID shortened 2020-2021 season that Lethbridge fell in their home opener. The ‘Canes fall to 0-1-0-0 to start the season while their all-time record in home openers slipped to 23-13-0-1 with two ties in the history.
The Hurricanes will visit the Hitmen in the second half of the opening weekend back-to-back at 7:00pm at Scotiabank Saddledome. Lethbridge will return to the VisitLethbridge.com Arena on Friday, September 27th when they welcome the Saskatoon Blades at 7:00pm. Tickets for the game can be purchased by visiting the VisitLethbridge.com Arena Ticket Centre, by calling 403-329-SEAT (7328) or online at www.visitlethbridgearena.ca.
