Tigers looking to build off success

By James Tubb on November 18, 2022.

Each win was followed by a loss to start the season for the Medicine Hat Tigers. But now, they find themselves on the verge of starting a streak.

The Tigers are on the road today in Saskatoon to face the Blades after picking up their first back-to-back wins of the season. Wednesday’s 6-1 drumming of the Brandon Wheat Kings at Co-op Place followed a 5-1 win Nov. 12 in Moose Jaw against the Warriors.

Go back one more game and the Tigers have five of the six possible points in their past three games, with a 4-3 shootout loss to Moose Jaw to start the point streak.

Forward Brendan Lee, who had two goals and an assist Wednesday, says they were always playing the right way but things have finally started to go their way.

“The hockey gods weren’t on our side,” Lee said. “Just in practice, we had a talk when the losses were coming, thinking about all the things we could do better. There’s other teams that are working hard off the ice, in practice. We just want to be a hardworking team and I think it’s been working.”

The win over Moose Jaw snapped a seven-game losing streak that had fans concerned with memories of the 11-win season just months ago. But this year’s team seems a lot different than last year’s, and they never gave up in the losing streak and are now reaping some early benefits of that.

“There wasn’t much (winning) last year,” goaltender Beckett Langkow said. “This year is a completely different year and it’s been fun so far. The guys are really battling, so it’s been good.”

Wednesday night the Tigers outshot Brandon 37-19, including limiting them to two shots in the second period. Medicine Hat out skated Brandon — which had lost 4-2 the night before in Swift Current — and limited the opposition chances.

Head coach Willie Desjardins said the effort Wednesday night is how he always hopes the team plays.

“With young guys it’s hard, there’s going to be some inconsistencies, we were just in a good spot tonight,” Desjardins said. “We had lots of guys going but those young guys, they work hard. If they can play like that every night, it’s going to really help us.”

Medicine Hat quickly sealed the game against the Wheat Kings, scoring three goals within the first three minutes of the third period to jump their lead from 3-1 to the eventual final of 6-1.

“A two-goal lead is a lot different from a five-goal lead,” Langkow said. “We came out in the third; in the intermission we said we don’t want to sit back. We want to go get the next one and we did that.

“Three quick ones to start, and we just didn’t give them much the rest of the period and just shut them down, which is good.”

The wins get the Tigers back on track in the standings (6-9-3-1) as they sit in fifth place of the Central division and tied for ninth in the Eastern conference after 19 games, a little over a quarter of the season through.

The two other teams tied with 16 points are the Wheat Kings and Prince Albert Raiders, which the Tigers will face Saturday. The Raiders made a blockbuster trade with the Seattle Thunderbirds on Wednesday, sending their captain Nolan Allan and 17-year-old Reese Shaw to Seattle for a three-player, six-draft-pick return.

Heading into the weekend road trip against the Blades — third in the Eastern conference — and the Raiders, the Tigers will look to continue their success. Desjardins says they just have to be good in every game ahead of them. They may have to keep doing it without defenceman Bogdans Hodass, who was out of the lineup Wednesday with an upper body injury and is listed as day-to-day.

Twenty-year-old utility man Kurtis Smythe, who had played forward since being acquired from Portland on Oct. 19, switched back to defence to cover the loss.

“We don’t have any nights off, we have to have every guy on, every night,” Desjardins said. “For us to win two without Hodass says a lot because he’s a real key guy. For Smythe to go back and play defence like that, he played well. He got up against the top matchup and it was big for him and for us, to be able to come in and play like that.”

Both games get underway at 7 p.m. MST. The Tigers next home game is Wednesday when they host the Edmonton Oil Kings.