NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers prospect Gavin McKenna fist bumps his way past the bench after scoring his first Western Hockey League goal in the 7-0 win over the Regina Pats on Saturday at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers gave the 6,405 fans in attendance Saturday night multiple options for a favourite moment in the 7-0 win over Regina.
The new record for a sold-out crowd at Co-op Place had the choice of Gavin McKenna’s first Western Hockey League goal, Andrew Basha scoring his first WHL hat trick (before adding a fourth), Beckett Langkow’s first career shutout or the Tigers, limiting the Pats to 17 shots and holding one of the best junior hockey talents in Connor Bedard off the score sheet.
“The focus is on the whole group, everyone had big nights,” Basha said. “Not one guy had a bad game or anything, so it builds confidence for a whole group. Our whole team played good and that’s a statement win for us, just a really, really special night.”
The Tigers came into the night off a two-loss Manitoba road trip where they only managed one goal across both contests and were in danger of being passed in the standings. Coming out of the weekend, Medicine Hat remains in seventh place of the Eastern conference. They are three points ahead of the three teams tied for eighth place, having the same number of games played as the Swift Current Broncos, one more played than the Calgary Hitmen and one fewer than the Brandon Wheat Kings.
Head coach Willie Desjardins says all the performances and firsts notched mattered in the win.
“They’re all huge, like really huge,” Desjardins said. “It’s great to see McKenna score, he’s had lots of chances, so it’s nice for him. He was a good player, he added to our lineup which is huge. Langkow has battled for us all year, he’s been close a couple times. and hasn’t got it, so it was great to see him. And Basha’s played great, he made lots of good plays, even the ones he didn’t score he was good.
“It’s good to see all those guys have good games but overall, too, you have to look at the guys that shut down Bedard all night and battled. It was basically a good team effort.”
Rhett Parsons and Tomas Mrsic also scored as the Tigers outshot the Pats 4-0, taking the season series 3-1. McKenna has suited up in two of those games, both sold-out wins at home, and has come away holding his own against Bedard. The 15-year-old prospect had a goal and three assists in those two games, to Bedard’s one goal.
McKenna was happy to get the win Saturday and have the chance to get his first WHL goal in front of his family, seeing them for the first time since the Holidays.
“I haven’t seen them since Christmas but for them to be in the building, I’m sure things will get emotional here when I see them,” McKenna said post game. “It was definitely an unreal feeling.”
McKenna was travelling Monday to Penticton for the CSSHL playoffs with the South Alberta Hockey Academy. Once their postseason is over, No. 72 will become a full-time Tiger. Langkow took note of the crowd when the Whitehorse, Yukon product scored.
“That was pretty cool, when Gav scored there that’s the loudest I’ve ever heard it,” Langkow said. “Going back to the last game we played here against them I think it was the Melin penalty shot there. It’s pretty cool, I kind of got chills every time.”
Langkow says getting that first shutout was only made sweeter by the other Tigers having their memorable nights and the fact they picked up two points for the playoff race. Having achieved the goal of his first shutout, getting to that postseason is all that’s on the mind for the Vegreville product.
“I just want to make playoffs,” Langkow said. “It’s my 19-year-old year, that’d be good for me and good for my career and that’s everyone’s goal right now is to just make the playoffs.”
The Tigers’ weekend ahead gives them a good opportunity to further push themselves ahead in the playoff race. Their three-game weekend starts Friday in Edmonton against the Oil Kings before hosting the Calgary Hitmen on Saturday for the first game of a home-and-home series that wraps Sunday in Calgary.
Despite the performance against Regina and how well the Tigers played as a team to secure that win, Desjardins says it’s in the rearview and they have to take the weekend slate one at a time.
“Every game is big, Edmonton played pretty well in Winnipeg so that’s going to be a tough game, then you have two huge games against Calgary,” Desjardins said. “It’s just one game at a time now and it’s kind of like playoff hockey, and we’ve wanted all year to have a chance to play this and so it’s great that we get a chance.”
