Tigers find missing power play

From The Daily News of Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007 . . .

After beating the Bruins 5-2 in Chilliwack on Saturday night, the Medicine
Hat Tigers found themselves staring at a couple of days off.
So they spent their down time in Kamloops. They played a little shinny, held
a practice at Memorial Arena, and wandered around our town. Oh yes, and they
found the missing half of their power-play unit.
The Tigers, who had scored just four power-play goals in 14 WHL road games,
counted twice with the man advantage Tuesday night in beating the Kamloops
Blazers 3-1 before an announced crowd of 4,245 at Interior Savings Centre.
“We switched up our power play a bit,” offered Medicine Hat left-winger
Tyler Ennis, an 18-year-old Edmonton native who had a goal and an assist.
“We switched the units up a bit — our line used to be on a different unit —
and went to a kind of spread formation. It was successful for our line last
year and that’s what we went to. It worked out pretty well.”
That it did.
The Tigers got their fifth road power-play goal on their second opportunity
of the game, at 6:37 of the middle period, playing tic-tac-toe with the
Blazers’ passive penalty-killing unit. Defenceman Trevor Glass moved into
the slot and beat Leclerc with a one-timer.
Ennis scored the other power-play goal, late in the third period, using his
speed in transition to pierce the Kamloops defence and beat Leclerc. Just
seconds earlier, the puck had slid under the stick of Kamloops centre Brock
Nixon as he attempted a shot in the Medicine Hat zone.
The Tigers’ power play has turned into one of life’s great mysteries. It
went into last night’s game 26-for-126 (20.6 per cent) at home, but just
4-for-66 (6.1 per cent) on the road.
“We got a lot of chances,” Ennis said of the road woes. “I don’t know what
it was but we just couldn’t score on the road. We were pretty good at home
but nothing was going in on the road.”
Until last night, that is.
The Tigers, the defending WHL champions, have a speedy bunch of forwards —
led by the line of Ennis, Brennan Bosch and Daine Todd — who love to skate,
gamble and pressure the puck.
Sheesh, on one second-period Kamloops power play, Leclerc was nose-to-nose
with Todd on a breakaway and, seconds later, found himself staring down a
2-on-1. Leclerc, who finished with 20 saves, denied the Tigers on both
attempts but, well, you get the point.
Still, the Blazers didn’t play badly in this game; they just didn’t have the
horses as they lost their third game in four nights.
“Obviously, there’s always things wrong when you don’t win the game,”
Kamloops head coach Greg Hawgood said. “But that was a pretty good team
effort that no one has seen out of this grouip for a while. I don’t think
the score was indicative of the game but hats off to Medicine Hat beacuse
they do have a good team.
“They have a few guys who are higher skilled than our guys. They have a top
line that kind of stands out more than guys on our side. They have a good
hockey club and . . . from a fan’s standpoint it’s a great hockey team to
watch.”
Centre Scott Wasden, who came over from the Tigers for left-winger Travis
Dunstall on Nov. 28, scored the game’s first goal, just the 11th time in 32
games the Blazers have done that.
Wasden’s goal, at 3:26 of the first period, was his fourth in seven games
with the Blazers after he totaled two scores in 26 games with the Tigers.
“I was pretty nervous the first couple of shifts,” Wasden said. “I just
wanted to create some energy and get some chances going. I scored that goal
and I felt relieved. It maybe calmed me down a bit and then I could focus on
playing my game.”
Kamloops took that lead into the second period — it had been 7-0-0-0 when
leading after one period — only to find the Tigers in a higher gear.
“They came out really hard in the first period,” Ennis said, “and took it
away from us. That wasn’t acceptable. We came out and had a really good
second period.”
Glass scored to tie the game, then right-winger Yashar Farmanara burned
through the neutral zone and past defenceman Victor Bartley to beat Leclerc.
That goal, at 10:25, stood up as the winner.
“They came out a little harder after they were down one,” Wasden said. “They
scored on the power play. We have to make sure our penalty kill is going
strong and make sure we capitalize on our chances.
“I thought we played pretty hard tonight.”
JUST NOTES: Referee Andy Thiessen gave each team five minor penalties. . . .
Medicine Hat LW Thomas Frazee hobbled off halfway through the second period
with an injury to his left leg. He didn’t return. . . . Farmanara, 20, from
West Vancouver, was a victim of the 20-year-old numbers game in Lethbridge
early in the season, but landed on his feet in Medicine Hat and has 14
goals. . . . Medicine Hat G Ryan Holfeld was solid with 23 saves but didn’t
face near the pressure that Leclerc did. . . . The Blazers outshot Medicine
Hat 4-3 in the third period. . . . The Tigers (18-12-3-1) are four games
into an eight-game road swing. Curling’s Continental Cup is in their
building this week.