A pair of Calgary Flames prospects went head to head on Monday night in Rimouski at the 2025 Memorial Cup. Andrew Basha and the Medicine Hat Tigers, reigning Western Hockey League champions, faced Etienne Morin and the Moncton Wildcats, the reigning Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League kingpins.

The Tigers scored first and led for the duration en route to a 3-1 victory over the Wildcats.

Ryder Ritchie opened the scoring for the second consecutive game, 4:24 into the first period. A Gavin McKenna rush chance was stopped by Moncton netminder Mathis Rousseau, but Oaziz Wiesblatt got the rebound and fed Ritchie a pass with a wide-open net and he didn’t miss the mark. Medicine Hat led 1-0.

Midway through the second period, the Tigers padded their lead on the power play. This time, Basha entered the zone with a ton of speed, allowing their power play to get set up. After a bit of passing, Basha fed Ritchie for a one-timer and he blasted it past Rousseau to give Medicine Hat a 2-0 advantage.

Moncton pressed to get back into the game early, scoring 31 seconds into the third period after a point shot from Loke Johansson was redirected by a slick in-motion tip by Dylan Gill to cut the Medicine Hat lead to 2-1.

But that’s as close as the Wildcats got. McKenna added an empty-netter with seven seconds left on the clock in the third period to make it a 3-1 victory for the Tigers.

Etienne Morin was on the left side of Moncton’s top defensive pairing, as has been customary for him, primarily playing alongside Dylan MacKinnon. Morin was generally pretty solid and registered two shots, but he also was tabbed for a minor penalty midway through the third period that hurt Moncton’s comeback momentum a bit.

Andrew Basha played on the left side of Medicine Hat’s second line alongside Cayden Lindstrom and Hunter St. Martin. He was generally pretty good, credited with two shots and the primary assist on Ritchie’s game-winner on the power play. For somebody that hasn’t played a ton of hockey in 2025, he looked quite good.

Both teams have big games coming up to close out the round robin portion of the Memorial Cup tournament.

On Tuesday, the Tigers (2-0) play the other undefeated team, the Ontario Hockey League champion London Knights (2-0). The team that wins that game finishes the round robin undefeated and moves right into Sunday’s championship game.

On Wednesday, winless Moncton (0-2) faces winless Rimouski (0-2), with the winner moving onto face the loser of the Medicine Hat/London game in Friday’s semi-final contest. The losing team will see their tournament come to a swift end.

Time will tell if we get another Basha/Morin clash during this edition of the Memorial Cup.