The Medicine Hat Tigers were briefly atop the Western Hockey League standings after beating the Prince Albert Raiders 8-4 Wednesday.
Following up an 11-3 drubbing in Saskatoon the night before, Medicine Hat’s explosive offence didn’t miss a beat against a Raiders team missing two of its top scorers.
With 2,358 fans looking on at the Art Hauser Centre, Ryan Chyzowski scored four times and added an assist in his highest-output game ever. The Kamloops product hat three unanswered power play goals in a defining third period after Spencer Moe had tied the game 4-4 in the first minute of the frame.
Brett Kemp had two goals in the first period, Garin Bjorklund made 16 of his 31 saves on the night and the road warriors had a stranglehold early.
Cole Sillinger had a goal and four assists to take over the league rookie scoring lead (12 goals, 21 assists). After a five-point night of his own Tuesday, James Hamblin added an assist to his spot atop the league scoring list (17 goals, 32 assists).
Cole Clayton also scored but it was Chyzowski who couldn’t be stopped, his hat trick goal chasing Raiders goalie Boston Bilous 6:51 into the third.
Both teams had players unavailable due to world junior championship commitments. Tigers starting netminder Mads Søgaard and forward Jonathan Brinkman are with Denmark, which is 1-1 at the Division 1 tournament in Belarus; Raiders points leader Aliaksei Protas and fellow Belarussian centre Ilya Usau are also 1-1 as the host team.
The Tigers haven’t missed a beat with rookie Bjorklund now 13-2 in his WHL career. They were tied with Edmonton with the most points in the league until the Oil Kings beat Swift Current 3-1, but have two games in hand and two more wins with their 22-8-1-0 record.
Prince Albert fell to 19-7-3-1, still leading the Eastern Division. The Raiders are sixth in the CHL’s top-10 rankings released earlier Wednesday, while Medicine Hat is ninth.
The team is home for a day before heading to Red Deer Friday, then finishing the pre-holiday schedule Saturday at home to Edmonton.
