Calgary, AB – After earning accolades as Hitmen Player of the Month for January, goalie Martin Jones calmly went about his business to lead Calgary to a 2-0 win over the Medicine Hat Tigers.
Jones stopped all 33 shots he faced to record his 13th career shutout and tie Justin Pogge for first place on the club’s all-time list.
“That’s definitely a nice bonus,” said Jones after being named the game’s first star. “When you get mentioned with a guy like Pogge it’s a pretty big honour. More importantly we’re cruising right now and we’re taking care of our own zone. A defence first mentality, that’s been key for us in this last little stretch here.”
The Hitmen (36-16-1-1) have now reeled off four straight wins, including a home-and-home sweep of the Tigers (32-28-3-5) to regain sole possession of top spot in the highly-competitive Central Division. At 74 points, Calgary now holds a one-point lead over Kootenay and a two-point advantage over Medicine Hat, while the Hitmen also have two games in hand on the Ice and four games in hand on the Tigers.
“It was such a big stretch of games here for us and it was important that everyone played well,” said Jones, who has now made 3,013 saves as a Hitmen and trails only Dan Spence (3,285) for top spot in that category. “It’s nice to know that we can elevate our game against the top teams.”
Joel Broda notched his team-leading 28th goal of the season on a Calgary power play at 19:50 of the second period, while Del Cowan scored into an empty net with 10 seconds left in the game.
“We probably did rely on Jonesy a little bit too much tonight,” admitted Broda, who now has five game-winning goals for the Hitmen this season. “We made him make some big saves. He’s a big-time goalie and he was able to make those saves tonight.”
With the game scoreless at 8:05 of the middle frame, Jones made a pad save on a penalty-shot attempt by Medicine Hat forward Emerson Etem.
“I was just trying to read whether it was going to be a shot or a deke,” said Jones, who basically stood his ground and forced Etem to shoot. “I got pretty fortunate there.”
Head Coach Mike Williamson credited Jones with backstopping the Hitmen to a big win against the Tigers.
“Jones was incredible for us tonight,” Williamson said. “He’s been strong and we expect him to obviously be at the top of his game and pull some out for us and he did that tonight. Medicine Hat was, I thought, the better team in terms of scoring chances tonight and Jones slammed the door shut.”
Calgary will open a busy stretch of five games in seven days starting Tuesday in Swift Current against the Broncos.
THREE STARS 1. Martin Jones, Hitmen 2. Joel Broda, Hitmen 3. Tyler Bunz, Tigers
HARDEST WORKING HITMAN Ben Wilson
TIGERS 0 at HITMEN 2 First period No scoring. Penalties - McKay MH, Beach Cal (fighting) 9:29.
Second period 1. Calgary, Broda 28 (Stone, Bubnick) 19:50 (pp) Penalties - Sylvester Cal (tripping) 2:13, Cameron MH (roughing), Cowan Cal (slashing, roughing) 4:33, Etem MH (hooking) 8:36, Frazer MH (slashing) 18:53.
Missed penalty shot - Etem MH 8:05 of second
Third period 2. Calgary, Cowan 12 19:50 (en) Penalties - King MH (holding the stick) 9:19, Kozun Cal (holding) 12:27, Burgart Cal (boarding) 16:35.
Shots on goal by: Medicine Hat 10 12 11 - 33 Calgary 11 12 1 - 24
Goal - Medicine Hat: Bunz (L, 24-15-5); Calgary: Jones (W, 24-10-0). Powerplays (goals-chances) - MH: 0-4; Cal: 1-3.
Referees - Chris Crich, Derek Zalaski. Linesmen - Steve Cochrane, Scott Sharun. Attendance: 8,689.
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