NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN
Medicine Hat Tigers captain James Hamblin is tied up by Saskatoon Blades defenceman Nolan Kneen during a Western Hockey League game at the Canalta Centre on Saturday, Nov. 30, 2019.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Crunch time has officially arrived for the Medicine Hat Tigers.
Trailing the Edmonton Oil Kings by 11 points for the Central Division lead with 24 games left in the regular season, Hat assistant coach Ryan Smith says the time is now to start climbing.
“It doesn’t get any easier after Christmas. People don’t realize that but it’s very much the truth,” said Smith, whose Tigers will be in Saskatoon tonight to take on the Blades at 6 p.m. “Every game is so important, whether it’s a divisional game or not, the points slowly start to evaporate and you don’t have a chance to get them back.”
Four points will be on the table when the Tigers make the trip into Saskatchewan this weekend to face the Blades tonight and Raiders Saturday. The last time Medicine Hat travelled to Saskatoon and Prince Albert, they set the league ablaze with a staggering 19 goals in two straight victories – 11-3 over the Blades and 8-4 against the Raiders.
But a lot has changed since that December road trip.
The Raiders made five moves since that meeting, most notably acquiring 19-year-old goaltender Max Paddock from the Regina Pats, while Saskatoon completed four deals of their own – and both will be eager to avenge their ugly losses from last month.
“We went in there last time and played a really good game,” said Tiger captain James Hamblin. “But we have to expect that they’re going to come out even harder, probably with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder because of the way we played last time we were there.”
While the Central Division has been a three-horse race between Edmonton (31-7-6-3), Medicine Hat (29-13-1-1) and the Lethbridge Hurricanes (27-11-2-5) all season, the East has been heating up in recent weeks. The Winnipeg Ice (27-16-1-0) have surged up to first in the division, but Prince Albert (23-14-5-3) is right on their heels, Saskatoon (22-18-1-2) sits four points out of third and the Brandon Wheat Kings (24-17-1-2) have been one of the hottest teams in the league with nine consecutive victories.
“These two games won’t be easy. Saskatoon and P.A. are both jockeying for position, Winnipeg has come on strong and Brandon is one of the better teams at the moment. All those teams, similar to our division, every game is important,” said Smith. “I think going into Saskatoon, they’re a team that’s wanting to climb up in their division and we want to keep going in ours. We want to try and catch Edmonton, stay ahead of Lethbridge, all those things. It’ll be a hard weekend, but we’ll be focused. We’ll be ready.”
