If there was any medicine under the hats of these Tigers, it was a prescription for misery for the Prince George Cougars.
They scored early and never let the Cougars leave sickbay, beating them 4-1 Friday night at the Canalta Centre in Medicine Hat.
Ryan Jevne led the way for the Tigers with two goals. Linus Nassen finished with a goal and two assists, Tyler Preziuso had a goal and an assist and Ryan Chyzowski tallied two assists.
Josh Curtis fired the lone Cougars goal.
Mads Sogaard, the Tigers six-foot-seven rookie netminder from Denmark, made 22 saves for his second WHL win. They outshot the Cougars 30-23.
Prince George trailed just 28 seconds into the game. Nassen took a shot from the blueline that ticked off the stick of Curtis, a Cougars right winger, and that changed the flight path of the puck just enough to fool Taylor Gauthier.
Gauthier's woes in the crease continued in the second period. Chyzowski broke in along the left side and let go a shot and the Cougar goalie kicked out a juicy rebound right onto the stick of Preziuso who buried it just 1:50 into the period.
Jevne made it a 3-0 game, 9:26 into the second. He let go a backhander from a sharp angle that Gauthier appeared to have stopped in his trapper but the puck fell out before the whistle and trickled between his legs into the net. Gauthier atoned for that mistake seconds later, stopping Hayden Ostir on a breakaway chance.
Curtis struck for the Cougars 3:39 into the third period, tipping in a goalmouth pass from Rhett Rhinehart, but Jevne cancelled the comeback plan when he scored less than minute later on a Medicine Hat power play.
The win improved Medicine Hat's record to 4-5-0-1, while the Cougars, who have lost four straight, dropped to 2-5-0-1. The Tigers have a 5-2-0-0 record head-to-head against the Cougars over six seasons.
This was their only meeting of the 2018-19 regular season.
LOOSE PUCKS: The Cougars will be in Lethbridge to play the Hurricanes tonight (6 p.m. PT, then travel to Cranbrook for a Sunday game (3 p.m. PT) against the Kootenay Ice....The Cougars have just one game next weekend, a Sunday afternoon encounter with the Swift Current Broncos at CN Centre... Willie Desjardins, a former Vancouver Canucks head coach who guided the Tigers to WHL titles in 2004 and 2007, is now program director of the South Alberta Hockey Academy, based in Medicine Hat. Desjardins coached the Canucks for three seasons, from 2014-17.
