NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers head coach Willie Desjardins offers a quick wave after being honoured for his 400th win as Tigers head coach Saturday night following the 6-3 victory against the Moose Jaw Warriors at Co-op Place.
The Medicine Hat Tigers winningest coach reached a milestone behind the orange and black bench Saturday night.
With a 6-3 win over the Moose Jaw Warriors at Co-op Place, head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins won his 400th game as Tigers bench boss. Desjardins says he was glad to reach the milestone in Medicine Hat.
“It’s nice for it to be at home, for sure I would have liked it sooner but it’s nice to have it at home,” Desjardins said. “But it’s nice, it was a character win and to get one like that, I’ll remember that one along the way. It was a good night, it’s a good place to win and I love this city.”
Desjardins was honoured on the jumbotron after the game and gave a quick wave to the crowd from the bench.
“It’s just a great moment for this organization and especially Willie–400 wins is just crazy,” starting goaltender Beckett Langkow said. “For him to do what he’s done for this long, it’s really special and I’m really happy to be a part of it.”
See Tuesday’s Medicine Hat News for a full story on the milestone.
After strong pressure from the Warriors early in the game, the Tigers struck for three goals late in the first period and eventually built up a 4-0 lead in the second.
Shane Smith opened the scoring for Medicine Hat midway through the first period with a shot from the high circles that beat Connor Ungar. Josh Van Mulligen and Owen MacNeil had the assists on Smith’s ninth of the year.
Brendan Lee followed that goal up only 2:13 later with a power play blast. Dru Krebs and Bogdans Hodass had the helpers on his first goal of the game. Less than a minute later, Pasha Bocharov made it a three-goal advantage for the Tigers after knocking in a loose puck in the middle of the slot. Oasiz Wiebslatt and Andrew Basha had the assists on Bocharov’s sixth of the year.
The Tigers carried the momentum into the second as Brayden Boehm and Tyler MacKenzie got in behind the Moose Jaw defenders and Bohem buried MacKenzie’s rebound for his 12th goal of the year. Krebs had the second assist on the eventual game winner.
With four seconds left in the period and the Warriors on a power play, Atley Calvert was left all alone beside Langkow and he knocked in a loose puck to get Moose Jaw on the board.
Medicine Hat regained four goal lead 26 seconds into the third period when Lee picked up a missed puck in the corner to the right of Ungar and swung around the back of the net before wiring the puck top shelf for his 18th goal of the year.
“It feels good to score those goals,” Lee said. “I have to give a lot of credit to my team, we played a full game and that feels really good to get that win.”
The Tigers entered play Saturday night off a 5-2 loss in Lethbridge on Friday against the Hurricanes.
Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat traded goals in the third as Jagger Firkus scored on a Warriors power play before Tomas Mrsic redirected a point shot from Rhett Parsons for his fourth goal of the year. With 1:34 left in the game, Brayden Yager had a shot trickle through Langkow but it wasn’t enough as the Tigers held on for the 6-3 win.
Ungar stopped 22 shots and across the ice, Langkow turned aside 25 of the 28 shots he faced for his 11th win of the season.
“We played really well tonight,” the net minder said. “They had a couple goals in the third period which isn’t great but for the first few periods I thought it was really good. I was just being aggressive and just cutting shots off as much as I could.”
With the win Saturday night, the Tigers (11-15-4-1) match their entire win total from last season when they finished last in the Western Hockey League. Langkow says if they continue playing like they have in their wins, the win column will get a lot fuller before seasons end.
“All of our wins this year we’ve played played the game we want to play,” Langkow said. “If we do that every game, the wins will just keep coming forever.”
The Tigers wrapped up a stretch of four games in five days Saturday and have two days off before another similar slate gets underway in a sprint to the Christmas break. Their next action is Tuesday on the road in Saskatoon against the Blades.
