Tigers not active at trade deadline

By JAMES TUBB on January 11, 2023.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The Medicine Hat Tigers were on the phones Tuesday but did not swing any deals at the WHL trade deadline.

There were a total of 12 moves filed Tuesday into the Western Hockey League office ahead of the 3 p.m. deadline, which followed four trades completed Monday, two blockbusters Sunday and two deals on Saturday.

Tigers general manager Willie Desjardins says they looked at improving their lineup for the future but were focused on wanting to stay competitive this season.

“We just felt that if there was something out there that maybe satisfied things we wanted to stay competitive, we want to have a team that can compete every night, so we thought it was best to stay with what we have. And we liked our players, we really like the players we have. We have a group that works hard and so we stayed with it.

“It bodes well for our team because if we didn’t like our group, we would have traded people out.”

Injuries hit the Tigers’ lineup hard in the week leading up to the deadline, with forwards Tyler Mackenzie and Brendan Lee both now out with long-term injuries.

“It’s tough because if we’re healthy we had a better chance of securing a good run, but we got beat up at the wrong time here,” Desjardins said. “Those two guys are big losses for us but we still wanted to put together a good team every night where we can play for our fans, and so we kept our group.”

Desjardins says the price for assets at the deadline started high as teams up in the standings separated themselves from the rest resulting in other teams not going for it quite as much in acquiring or selling.

The Tigers entered the deadline and play Tuesday night with a record of 14-19-5-1, putting them in 10th place of the Eastern conference with 34 points. They trail the Swift Current Broncos, who are in eighth place, by three points.

They did receive players from within with Hunter St. Martin returning to the lineup from his facial injury suffered on Dec. 18 in Saskatoon, and defenceman Bogdans Hodass returned after playing for Latvia at the World Juniors.

Desjardins says another part of their decision to stand pat was not wanting to put themselves in a situation like last season where they weren’t able to compete with other teams and give fans a competitive team to watch.

“Last year was a hard year and we didn’t want to put our fans through another year where we weren’t able to compete every night,” Desjardins said. “We kept the group that were able to compete with our injuries, and that’s important for us.

“Maybe down the road it would’ve helped to have a couple of guys but then you have a night where you’re not going to be able to compete as much and that would have been hard for the fans.”

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