Canes @ Hitmen Game Two

The Lethbridge Hurricanes will try and tie this second round series this afternoon when they meet the Hitmen in Calgary for game two of this second round series.

The Hitmen rolled to a 7-1 victory in game one at the Saddledome Friday night. The Canes will need a much better effort today if they want to tie this series with games 3 and 4, and potentially game 5 all in Lethbridge in the coming week. I don’t think the Hurricanes coaching staff was at all impressed with the outcome and how it got to be 7-1 in the first place. I would expect to see a much more determined Lethbridge team here today.

Both teams had a day off and a practice yesterday. Perhaps the day off will give the Canes some time to go over things heading into game two and to see where they can limit the Calgary attack and how, maybe to take advantage of a few more of their opportunities. Mind you, the Hitmen didn’t give the Hurricanes much to work with either. Lethbridge must try to generate more shots and they need more traffic in front of Hitmen goaltender Martin Jones. Already this is a key game in this series, because the Canes can’t afford to go down 2-0 to the Calgary Hitmen, a team that not many clubs in the WHL had any success against this season.

Some people have asked me why was Juha Metsola was pulled after he allowed that 5th goal on Friday. I certainly don’t think it was his play. I would suggest it was simply to give him a rest and get him ready for today. Juha’s played a lot of hockey the last couple of weeks. We’ll soon see if he’s ready for another big test here this afternoon.

Game time from Calgary is 2 o’clock. The pre-game show on CJOC at 1:30.