NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Beckett Langkow collects himself ahead of puck drop in an 8-2 win over the Edmonton Oil Kings on March 22 at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Whether he’s at a high or a low, Medicine Hat Tigers net minder Beckett Langkow isn’t one to publicly showcase his emotions, he remains even keeled.
The 19-year-old Vegreville product is excited and ready for his first career Western Hockey League playoffs, as he’ll get the start tonight in Winnipeg against the Ice. Despite it being the post season, Langkow says nothing changes for him come game time.
“It’s kind of the same, just try to prepare like I always do,” Langkow said. “Obviously over there they have a lot of skill, so you have to know who’s on the ice. But other than that, it’s just another game.”
Langkow was named the Tigers’ starter in training camp and has ran with the starts ever since, leading the league in minutes played between the pipes, sitting top three in starts and top 10 in saves made. He finished his year with a 25-20-7 record with one shutout, putting up an .888 save percentage and 3.05 goals against average.
The last time he was a starter in the playoffs was while playing for the Fort Saskatchewan Agers U18AAA team in 2019-20, where he had two shutouts and a 7-6-0 record with a .922 SVP and a 2.63 GAA. He can’t believe it’s been three seasons since then but says there are some things he can take from the Rangers’ run.
“Those were one of the only times I’ve really had a lot of pressure games, a couple of times we were down in the series facing elimination, which was like last Saturday,” Langkow said. “It felt a bit similar, we’re down to that game and I was just relaxed. I thought we were going to come back and we did.”
All season Langkow has emphasized not letting a win inflate him too much while also not getting too down on himself after a loss. He would enjoy a win after it happened until the clock hit midnight and then it was a new day, something he looks to continue in the playoffs.
“It’s huge, after a loss you can’t really look into it too much because you have to play again the next day or a couple days later,” Langkow said. “The scores in the games don’t really matter, you can lose 10-0 and then win the next one 2-1, so it doesn’t matter, you just have to just focus on getting the wins.”
Langkow has worked more than his fair share of games in the last month, starting the Tigers’ last five games of the season and eight of the last 10. He says the approach they’ve had in the second half and even more in March will help them gear up for playoffs.
“The guys in there can say we’ve been playing playoff hockey for months already,” Langkow said. “It’s huge. We didn’t take any game lightly down the stretch here and we made sure to just treat it like it was a playoff game.”
