By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Big night from Jadon Joseph powers the Hurricanes past the Tigers

Sep 23, 2017 | 6:25 AM

LETHBRIDGE – The Lethbridge Hurricanes opened the 2017-18 season on a high note, defeating their Highway 3 rival the Medicine Hat Tigers, 5-2 on Friday night at the Enmax Centre.

During the introductions, the Hurricanes unveiled the new leadership group for this season, with 5th year veteran Giorgio Estephan named as captain.  

Assistant captains for the year will be Jordy Bellerive, Tanner Nagel and Ryan Vandervlis.

Once the puck was dropped, it was a fiery fight between the two sides right off the hop.

The Tigers opened the scoring in the first period, when Mark Rassell buried one after out waiting the Hurricanes defenders and goalie Stuart Skinner.

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It required a second look from the officials because Skinner was bumped by a Tiger, but it ultimately stood up.

Lethbridge tied things up at one a piece when Estephan netted his first goal of the season, and as captain, with 2:55 left in the first period.

Medicine Hat quickly took the 2-1 lead early in the second period off a turnover and a goal by Gary Haden.

The big difference in this one was special teams, with the Hurricanes getting the power play off to a good start.

Dylan Cozens scored the first power-play goal for the Hurricanes at 5:12 of the second that knotted things up at 2-2.

It looked as if that would be the score heading into the third, but with just 3.8 seconds left in the period Jadon Joseph put Lethbridge ahead when he roofed one over Tigers goalie Michael Bullion.

The insurance goal for the Hurricanes came with 6:48 to go in the third period, when Zane Frankin scored his first of the year before Joseph added his second of the night into an empty net.

Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio says he thought his team had a slow start, and then started to figure things out.

“We started slowly, I don’t know if we were a little bit nervous, but then we got better as the game went on,” Kisio continued. “With our power play, we’re still figuring some things out and struggling a little bit but we did get some big goals tonight, and after that I thought looked we good.”

The Hurricanes finished the game 2-5 on the PP, and killed off all three man advantages for the Tigers.

Joseph finished with 2 goals and an assist, Estephan had a goal and an assist and goaltender Stuart Skinner made 37 saves in the victory.

It wasn’t all good news for the Hurricanes on Friday night though, assistant captain Ryan Vandervlis left the game with an injury in the first period and didn’t return.

The two teams are back at it again tonight, when they wrap up the home and home in Medicine Hat.