Tigers Vanquish Wheat Kings 6-1
The Tigers welcomed the Brandon Wheat Kings to Co-op Place for their first meeting of the season on Friday night. The Tigers were hungry for another win coming off a great 3-0 victory against the Red Deer Rebels on home ice on Wednesday.
Despite the two teams meeting for the first time this season, the first period seemed like a matchup between bitter rivals. Both teams had opportunities on the power play but only the Tigers were able to take advantage. Oasiz Wiesblatt opened the scoring a little over half way through the first with his second of the year. Gavin McKenna found Wiesblatt at the left faceoff dot where he let go a half slapper that beat the goaltender. Mathew Ward also picked up an assist on the opening goal.
The Tigers offence poured it on early in the second period. Hunter St. Martin scored his team leading third goal of the season just over three minutes into the period. He found a small window over the netminder’s shoulder from the side of the net. Liam Ruck picked up the assist on the goal. The Tigers struck again a minute and a half later when Niilopekka Muhonen scored his second of the season. Coming down on the left side he let a low wrister go that beat the goalie on the blocker side. Hayden Harsanyi and Jonas Woo picked up the helpers. Woo’s assist was his 50th of his WHL career.
The third period started very much the same as the previous. Marcus Pacheco scored his first of the season just over three minutes into the final frame. Coming down on a two on one, he decided to keep the puck and let a perfectly placed wrister go to give the Tigers a four goal lead. Veeti Vaisanen and Harsanyi picked up the assists. Despite the comfortable lead, the Tigers didn’t take their foot off the throttle. McKenna netted his first of the season while on the power play. Andrew Basha and Woo collected the helpers on the power play goal. The Tigers would add one more before the end of the period. Kadon McCann settled the bouncing puck while going hard to the net and made a move to beat the goaltender for his first of the campaign. Woo picked up his third assist of the game on the goal. Unfortunately, the Wheat Kings found the scoresheet before the final buzzer. Jaxon Jacobson found Brady Turko sneaking behind the defence for an easy tap in to make it a 6-1 game.
Harrison Meneghin got his third straight start in net since being acquired from Lethbridge. He had another fantastic game between the pipes saving 21 of the 22 shots he faced.
Special Teams:
- PP: 2/7 – 28.6%
- PK: 4/4 – 100%
Stringam Law Three Stars:
- Harrison Meneghin – Medicine Hat
- Jonas Woo – Medicine Hat
- Gavin McKenna – Medicine Hat
Supplement King Hardest Working Player – Matt Paranych
The Tigers are back in action tomorrow night when they host the Vancouver Giants in their lone meeting this season. Game time is 7:00 PM and tickets are available on tixx.ca. You can also listen live on Wild 94.5 FM or watch on watch.chl.ca.
