Hurricanes Beat PA Raiders 4-3 in Shoot Out

PRINCE ALBERT, SK. - Graham Hood scored a pair of goals in what was a great first period of road hockey as the Lethbridge Hurricanes downed the PA Raiders 4-3 Wednesday evening.

A very quick start for the Hurricanes on the road in this game. Just 23 seconds into the first period, Graham Hood knocked home his 13th of the season, between the legs of Cole Holowenko. That made it 1-0 Lethbridge. The Hurricanes would continue to press hard as the period went on. Just past the midway point, the Canes would get another. Graham Hood, who was all over the ice in the opening 20 minutes scored his second of the night and 14th of the season to put the visitors ahead 2-0. Lethbridge had numerous good scoring chances as they out shot PA 20-2. Graham Hood had 7 of those shots himself as well as one that went off the goal post.

In the second, Prince Albert scored early to cut the Lethbridge lead 2-1. Anthony Baradaro picked off a Hurricanes clearing attempt and lifted a shot over Liam Liston to make it a 2-1 game in favour of the Hurricanes. That didn't last long. Just 10 seconds later, right off the face-off at centre ice, Juraj Bezuch moved in and snapped home his 7th of the season, to quickly give the Hurricanes their two goal lead back, this time 3-1. Before the end of the period, PA would get one more. Anthony Bardaro found the back of the net for a second time in this game, cutting the Lethbridge lead to 3-2. The Raiders came very close a few times to tying the game, but hat's the way the period finished. It was a better period for the Raiders, but the Canes still held a sizable advantage in the shots on goal department, 32-15 through 40 minutes.

In the third, the Raiders would push hard to get the equalizer and late in the period they would tie things up. Justin Maylan beat Liam Liston with under two minutes to go to even things up at 3-3. That's the way regulation would end and for the first time in quite a while, the Hurricanes would have to head to extra time to decide a winner. The 5 minute overtime solved nothing, so we would go to the shoot out to settle things. The Hurricanes got goals from Juraj Bezuch and Phil Tot in the shoot out to win it. Bezuch made an unreal move and scored a highlight real goal while Phil Tot scored on his chance to give Lethbridge a 4-3 victory. Liam Liston stopped both shots he faced. Lethbridge out shot the Raiders 40-33 in this game. The Canes went 0/3 on the power play and the Raiders went 0/4. The victory improves the Canes overall record to 26-37-0-1 on the season. Lethbridge has won 4 of it's last 5 games.

The Hurricanes called up a pair of players to help fill the void this week with a couple of injuries. Brady Ramsay went down late in the 2nd period of the Hurricanes 4-1 loss in Edmonton last weekend. He's listed to be out at least a week. Craig Leverton also remains sidelined with an upper body injury. With two regular forwards unable to play, the team has brought in Tyler Wong and Harrison Harper. Wong had 32 points in 26 games this season for the UFA Bisons and Harper had 10 points in 28 games for the Junior B Airdrie Thunder. Captain Brody Sutter sat out Wednesday's game as well with back spasms.

NEXT UP

The Hurricanes will head to Brandon Friday (Mar. 2) to take on the Wheat Kings in the final meeting of the season between the two teams. The visiting team has won all three previous games these two clubs have played this season. Game time is 6:30 MST. The pre-game show on CJOC at 6:00. The Canes will play the final game of this road trip Saturday (Mar. 3) in Moose Jaw. They're back home next week for their final 3 games this season at the ENMAX Centre. The Warriors pay a visit on Tuesday (Mar. 6).

Thanks,
Pat