Hurricanes Drop 4th Pre-season Tilt

The Lethbridge Hurricanes are still looking for their first win of the 2009 pre-season.

The hockey club lost a close one, 2-1 late Friday afternoon against the Everett Silvertips. The Canes' are playing in a mini-exhibition tournament in Kennewick, WA. They have two games remaining in pre-season play: Saturday afternoon versus Portland and then Sunday against Tri-City.

The loss to Everett drops the Hurricanes to 0-4 in the pre-season.

After this final tune-up, Lethbridge will return home to prepare for the start of the regular season next Friday in Cranbrook. It still isn't known if the Canes' will have all 6 players back from pro camps by the time September 18th rolls around, but I would expect the bulk of those players to be ready to go for the start of the season.

Despite the 4 exhibition losses, the Hurricanes haven't really played all that bad given their roster at the moment consists mainly of 15, 16, and a few 17 year olds. This young group has been able to keep the scores close. In all 4 games, Lethbridge found itself in penalty trouble, which ultimately proved to be the difference.

Next week, I would expect Head Coach and G.M. Rich Preston to finalize his regular season roster and again it will depend a lot on who is and who isn't back from NHL camps.

Here is the recap from Friday's game:

1st Period
No scoring

2nd Period
EVT - Josh Winquist 1 (Chris de la Lande, Paul Van de Velde), PPG, 3:31 LET - Cam Braes 1 (Craig Orfino), 5:53

3rd Period
EVT - Markus McCrea 1 (Ryan White, D. Jay McGrath), 16:18

Goaltending EVT: Luke Siemens, 60.00, 23/24 LET: Michael Tadjdeh, 59.08, 31/33


Thanks,
Pat