SPECIAL TO THE NEWS COLTON MCKEE
The Medicine Hat Tigers dump jugs of Gatorade on head coach Willie Desjardins after capturing the franchise's sixth Ed Chynoweth Cup, beating the Spokane Chiefs 4-2 on May 16 in Game 5 of the WHL Championship series.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Even after finishing one of the best chapters in franchise history, the Medicine Hat Tigers are onto the next page.
The Tigers are five days removed from a 4-1 loss in the final of the 105th Memorial Cup, falling to the London Knights. It was just three weeks ago they beat the Spokane Chiefs 4-2 in Game 5 of the WHL Championship series, capturing their sixth Ed Chynoweth Cup.
Waking up Tuesday morning, after late night travel Sunday night, head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins began looking toward the season ahead.
“You’re disappointed along with your players, not disappointed in them, they gave us everything they had, so I had zero disappointment with them, it’s more that you know how hard it is to get to that tournament, and when you get there, you just have to find a way to win,” Desjardins said. “We didn’t, so then it’s time to move on. So the next day, when I got up, it was the realization we gotta get moving forward because we have a lot of work to do to get our team ready for next season.”
The Tigers face a slew of changes to their roster coming off their championship season, with captain Oasiz Wiesblatt, forward Mat Ward and goaltender Harrison Meneghin all graduating. Defenceman Tanner Molendyk is signed to a pro contract, as are forwards Andrew Basha and Hunter St. Martin.
They officially learned Thursday that forward Cayden Lindstrom will be making the jump to NCAA next season with Michigan State University. Desjardins says it’s hard to fully plan out an offseason. They went into last year’s with a thin blue line and added four full-time players in Bryce Pickford, Jonas Woo, Veeti Vaisanen and Niilopekka Muhonen.
“We’ll always look to see if there’s ways we can replenish it, it is unfortunate for us that the NCAA stuff came in this year because we had an unbelievable team returning if that didn’t happen,” Desjardins said. “So that’s unfortunate for us. But, saying that, we have a really good group, we just have to build on the group we had.
“So you can’t tell what will happen in the offseason, the only thing you know is that we’re going to do our best to build the team we need to do to win.”
Desjardins says he’s disappointed they weren’t able to have enough time with Lindstrom to get him to his full game, a level he says the 19-year-old will reach with Michigan State.
“I was excited to see him and he needs to look at what he thinks will help his career,” Desjardins said. “There’s lots of different things, they don’t play near as many games as we do. There’s lots of things for him to consider and he has to when he makes his decision. So I know he loved his time here, I appreciated how hard he tried to get back for this run.”
There have long been rumours around forward Gavin McKenna committing to an NCAA school this season. Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects says the Whitehorse, Yuk. product will visit schools in July and make a decision for next season.
“There’s nothing else to say, they’re rumours, and until there’s more than that, there’s really nothing to say on them,” Desjardins said.
As they look toward the offseason, made shorter by their trip to the Memorial Cup, Desjardins says they’ll also look to make good on the fan support they received all season.
“They made it special, they made it fun for our guys and it goes hand in hand a little bit,” Desjardins said. “Our guys made it fun for the fans as well, and that’s a pretty good combination, it’s a pretty good team. So it’s up to us to do our job next year, and if we do, I’m sure the fans are going to be there. That’s just what they do. So we have to make sure we’re ready to deliver.
“Will it be hard? For sure, everybody’s going to be after us. We’ve had some guys we really counted on that may not be back but we have other stuff going. I like winning, I really like winning and I like winning even more in Medicine Hat, so we’ll be determined to put a great team on the ice.”
He also sees this offseason having an easy motivator for his group, they didn’t win the final game of the season.
“We were so close and we didn’t, so we have to be really, really hungry to try to get back there,” Desjardins said. “But saying that, every team in our league is hungry to get back there, so it doesn’t make us any different. But we have the most recent taste in our mouth and that should be something that motivates us.”
