Americans fall to Hurricanes
The Tri-City Americans took a step back in their hunt for a playoff spot Friday with a 5-3 road loss to the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
The Americans (25-26-2-1, 53 points), whose five-game point streak ended, fell five points behind Portland and Kamloops, and are six back of Spokane with 18 games to play in the regular season.
Tri-City plays at Red Deer (35-17-1-2, 73 points) on Saturday night.
The Hurricanes (39-16-0-0, 78 points), who lead the Eastern Conference, jumped out to a 2-0 lead after the first period with two goals by Tyler Wong.
Tri-City struck back in the second with a goal by Vladislav Lukin at 2:20 on the power play, only to see Wong complete his hat trick 3 minutes later.
Goals by Tyler Sandhu and Lukin brought the Americans to within 4-3 after two periods.
With time running out in the third, Tri-City pulled goalie Evan Sarthou for an extra attacker, but Lethbridge’s Ryley Lindgren found the empty net at 19:10 for the winning margin.
Sarthou finished with 23 saves, while rookie Michael Rasmussen had two assists for the Americans.
Jayden Sittler had 25 saves for the Hurricanes, who also got a second-period goal from Carter Folk and two assists from Brayden Burke.
Hurricanes 5, Americans 3
Tri-City | 0 | 3 | 0 | — | 3 |
Lethbridge | 2 | 2 | 1 | — | 5 |
First — 1, Let, Wong 29 (Burke, Merezhko), 8:19. 2, Let, Wong 30 (Burke, Nielsen), 18:54 (pp).
Second — 3, TC, Lukin 18 (Rasmusen, Carlo), 2:20 (pp). 4, Let, Wong 31 (Pankewicz, Skeoch), 5:30. 5, TC, Sandhu 15 (Rayman), 11:47. 6, Let, Folk 8 (Atwal, Millette), 12:41. 7, TC, Lukin 19 (Sandhu, Rasmussen), 15:56 (pp).
Third — 8, Let, Lindgren 21, 19:10 (en).
Shots — TC 7-18-3 — 28. Let 4-12-12 — 28. Power plays — 2-7. Let 1-6. Goalies — TC, Sarthou 22-23-2-0 (27 shots-23 saves). Let, Sittler 18-8-0-0 (28-25). Referees — Matt Cassidy and Colin Watt. A — 4,392.
This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 11:20 PM with the headline "Americans fall to Hurricanes."