Cubs face tough choices following dominant pre-season

By Ryan McCracken on September 17, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

The Medicine Hat Cubs will have some tough decisions to make after a stellar pre-season showing over the weekend at the Kinplex.

The Cubs came alive in a pair of rousing victories over the Assiniboia Southern Rebels, 9-0 Saturday and 6-5 Sunday, setting the stage for a promising season to come and leaving head coach JDGaetan feeling confident in his wealth of options.

“They’re making it hard on us and that’s what we asked at the start of the weekend, ‘don’t make it easy on us, we want a difficult decision,’ and they’ve done that this weekend,” said Gaetan, whose Cubs entered the weekend with a 32-man roster. “I’m pretty confident with the group we’re going forward with and I’m looking forward to the year.”

Chandler Aleman led the Cubs Saturday with three goals and an assist. Noah Irvine, Cooper Hilworth, Quinton Karg, Tristen Stensrud and Desmond Crawford added individual markers.

“We have a high-energy team,” said Gaetan. “They’re going to bring energy and a high pace of hockey that should cause trouble for a lot of teams in our league.”

Medicine Hat faced a tougher challenge Sunday with a much younger roster on the ice, but despite falling into a 4-2 hole early in the third period the Cubs rallied back to secure a thrilling last-minute victory.

Trailing 5-4 in the final minute of regulation, Crawford and Tavin Straub scored to bring the packed Kinplex to its feet and send the Cubs off the ice with a perfect 3-0 pre-season record.

“Our top line was sitting in the stands so I’m sure that affected a little bit, but it was good for the rest of the guys to come together and show we can actually win without those top guys,”said Straub, who scored the game winner with 35 seconds left on the clock. “It was a good pace. We had lots of rookies out there trying out for the team so it was good to have them out there getting used to the pace.”

Hilworth, Stensrud, Mackenzie Fritzler and Joshua Schafer also scored for Medicine Hat in the win.

Matt Kesslering, Preston Carriere, Braeden Magotiaux, Cayden Pryce and Alex Hicks scored for Assiniboia.

The Cubs open the HJHLregular season Saturday in Ponoka against the Stampeders.

The Cubs will host the Coaldale Copperheads in their home opener on Sept. 29 at 6:30 p.m.

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