The Medicine Hat Tigers boast Western Hockey League-leading scorer Trevor Cox, who came in riding a 21-point spree over his last six games, league third-leading scorer Cole Sanford and forward Markus Eisenschmid, who captained Germany in the world junior tournament.
So go figure that it would be defenceman Ty Schultz, with his first goal of the season, that gave Medicine Hat the key goal with a laser to the top corner at 4:08 of the third period in a 3-2 victory over the Victoria Royals on Thursday night. That gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead and the Royals were unable to recover. The Tigers (28-9-2) showed in good measure why they are the seventh-ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League while the Royals fell to 20-19-3.
The game featured the return to the Royals of defenceman Joe Hicketts and head coach Dave Lowry, who missed the previous eight Victoria games because of being away with the gold-medallist Canadian team at the 2015 world junior championship. The pair were brought to centre ice before the opening face-off and received a standing ovation from the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre crowd of 3,516.
Hicketts said the game wasn’t lost in the third period but in the first.
“We took too many penalties in the first 8-10 minutes and dug ourselves a bit of a hole,” said the Red Wings prospect. “It took the wind out of our sails.”
The Tigers added to their already-potent roster earlier this week by acquiring 19-year-old forwards Dryden Hunt and Kyle Burroughs from the Regina Pats. Hunt, who was the Pats’ leading scorer, fired the winning goal Thursday at 10:29 of the third period on a two-man power-play.
Travis Brown’s goal brought Victoria back to within one in the third period at 16:46. It was his fourth goal, to go with eight assists, in the last seven games as he took over the WHL lead for scoring by defencemen with 39 points.
Victoria forward Tyler Soy scored his seventh goal over his last seven games at 10:12 of the first period. Chad Labelle tied it 1-1 at 4:42 of the second.
Newly-acquired centre Alex Forsberg made his Royals debut on the first line as he managed two shots on goal. Victoria obtained the 19-year-old Forsberg in a Tuesday trade.
“I would have liked to have chipped in a bit more,” said Forsberg. “But it’s good to get the first one under my belt and hope for better [tonight, when the Royals begin a two-game home set against the Prince George Cougars].”
Russian U-18 national team defenceman Alexey Sleptsov missed making his Royals debut because of a minor knee issue. Sleptsov and 19-year-old goaltender Justin Paulic came to the Royals from Moose Jaw in another Tuesday trade, which sent 19-year-old Winnipeg Jets-signed forward Axel Blomqvist from Victoria to the Warriors. Paulic was dressed as back-up Thursday to starter Coleman Vollrath. The Royals made room for Paulic by sending 18-year-old goaltender Jayden Sittler to the Lethbridge Hurricanes for a seventh-round bantam draft pick.
