Tigers get ready for tilt with Everett

By Mo Cranker on October 11, 2017.

mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker

It hasn’t been a perfect start to the season for the Medicine Hat Tigers, but the team is hoping to get on a roll starting Wednesday with a game against the Everett Silvertips.

Starting the year off with three wins and three losses, Medicine Hat is coming off of a 6-1 beating at the hands of the Prince Albert Raiders.

“We just need to play our game,” said Tigers forward Mark Rassell. “I actually don’t think the last loss was that bad, at least compared to the week before. I felt we did play a better game, but any time you give up six goals you’re going to have a hard time winning games. We didn’t quite get the offence we needed and we need to look ahead to the next game.”

The team split two home games this past weekend, winning 4-2 against Regina, before falling to Prince Albert. Defenceman David Quenneville, who had three assists in Friday’s win, says the team is looking to go on a winning streak early in the year.

“We’re looking to get on a streak here and to find some consistency,” he said. “We’ve basically split every game so far on the weekend, we want to get on a streak, and maybe get maybe two or three in a row and really start to build on our game.”

After scoring the only goal in Saturday’s loss, Rassell says he wants to see the Tigers play around their speed in Wednesday’s tilt with Everett.

“We just need to play fast and have confidence in our systems,” he said. “We’re a team that’s built to play fast, and play a structured game. When we can nail our systems early on in the year, that’s when success comes for us, when other teams are trying to figure out what they want to do with their lineup and their guys. If we can have confidence in our group of five mentality in the D-zone and the O-zone, then I think we’ll have success.”

Wednesday’s game against Everett will be the only one of the year for the Tabbies. Both Quenneville and Rassell say the team is looking forward to playing against the squad.

“They’re a team we don’t see too often, I think only once a year,” said Rassell. “These are pretty exciting games for us to play against the U.S teams. We don’t know a whole lot about these players, but we trust our coaches to watch enough tape on them to get a good idea how to play them.”

“We kind of got shriveled when we want to that division last year, they play real physical, real fast and they’re real big over there,” said Quenneville. “We need to go out there and get two points.”

Puck drop between the Silvertips and Tigers is at 7 p.m. at the Canalta Centre.

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