NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
The Medicine Hat Tigers storm goaltender Beckett Langkow after clinching a playoff spot with a 4-3 win Saturday over the Swift Current Broncos at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The 4,506 Medicine Hat Tigers fans in attendance Saturday night weren’t there to see another team’s superstar, they weren’t looking to collect a 50/50 bounty, they wanted and got to see the Tigers clinch a playoff spot.
Medicine Hat beat the Swift Current Broncos 4-3 at Co-op Place to secure the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern conference with a record of 30-29-8-1, a vast improvement from their 11-win season a year prior.
Head coach Willie Desjardins described Saturday’s clinching win as a special moment for his team and their fans coming off of the difficult 202122 season.
“It was a tough year, I’ve said how much I appreciate our fans staying with us, like that was a bad, bad year and they stayed with us,” Desjardins said. “I always say it’s easy to be with people when things are good. When things aren’t good, that’s when you know you have true fans and so I appreciate last year a lot going into this year.
“It was great to see we had a good turnout tonight for this game. The fans make a difference here. Excited by the win and for a whole organization, the Masers are outstanding people and give us everything we need, our guys really wanted it.”
Cayden Lindstrom had the eventual game winner, scoring six minutes into the third period to give Medicine Hat a 4-2 lead at the time. The 16-year-old enjoyed the goal and the moment but relished the crowd around them.
“It was very special, the crowd and the atmosphere was just great tonight,” Lindstrom said. “It was loud and it was just great to be part of.”
The Tigers entered Saturday’s contest off a 3-1 loss in Swift Current on Friday, setting up the winner-takes-all contest on Saturday. It almost went the other way as the Broncos jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first period.
Medicine Hat answered back with three unanswered goals in the second frame from Tyler MacKenzie, Oasiz Wiesblatt and Dallon Melin, who celebrated his 21st birthday on Sunday. He says the message after the first period to keep them in the game was simple.
“The big thing was, we just had to stick to our game, we know if we stick to it, we’re going to wear them down,” Melin said. “We knew they played out (Friday) night in the third in their barn, we out played them and we knew it was only a matter of time if we stuck to our game there. Their D were getting tired and they did and we capitalized on opportunities.”
After Lindstrom’s goal in the third the Broncos brought themselves within one with 9:34 remaining in the game, setting up for tense moments for all donning the orange and black.
Swift Current pulled the goalie with 1:34 left as the Tigers faced an onslaught with the extra attacker on the ice. Medicine Hat net minder Beckett Langkow says he wasn’t trying to think in that moment, just react and says the crowd played a large part in the game.
“I don’t think I’ve ever looked at the clock so much,” Langkow joked. “Once we cleared it a couple times, and there’s six on five there, I wasn’t really thinking at that point. It was kind of just in the moment.
“It’s really special and makes a huge difference and I think it was the difference in this mini series. We lost in their rink and come back to our rink and have a great crowd. There was a lot of Swift Fans here tonight who had a couple chants, but every time they started our fans were just louder.”
With the playoff berth the Tigers are set to face the WHL’s regular season champion, the Winnipeg Ice. That series gets underway Friday and Saturday in Winnipeg for games one and two before returning to Medicine Hat for games four and five on April 4th and 5th.
The Ice took the season series 3-1 with Medicine Hat’s lone win coming on home ice on Mar. 1, a 6-4 win.
“It’s a really tough series, those guys are super talented and they’re really deep, they’ve built for this year,” Desjardins said. “That’s a tough series for us but we’re excited to be going and once we go there, we’re not going to just be excited just to show up. We’re going to want to win and we’re going to play hard for it. All the boys are looking forward to it and it should be a great trip.”
