NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN Medicine Hat Tigers forward Ryan Chyzowski returns to the bench after scoring a goal in a Western Hockey League game against the Lethbridge Hurricanes at the Canalta Centre on Tuesday.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
The Medicine Hat Tigers have been employing a five-forward power play unit ever since kicking off their 50th season in the Western Hockey League. While unorthodox, the strategy has been wreaking havoc on opposing penalty killers with a league-leading 26.4 per cent rate of success.
Through 110 chances so far this season, Medicine Hat has struck for 29 goals – 20 of which have come from the top unit’s main cast of James Hamblin, Cole Sillinger, Ryan Chyzowski, Brett Kemp and Elijah Brown.
“They’ve been clicking,” said Tigers assistant coach Joe Frazer. “It always starts with hard work. You’ve got to make sure you outwork the penalty kill and they’re doing that. They have a tremendous amount of skill, so when you put the hard work in, your skill will take over.”
And it took over Tuesday, striking three times on five chances – two of which came from Chyzowski, the other from Kemp – to extend Medicine Hat’s winning streak to five games with an 8-3 win over the rival Lethbridge Hurricanes.
“It’s huge part of all of hockey right now,” Chyzowski said of the power play. “I think it’s just a matter of taking advantage of that.”
The Tigers and Hurricanes are in the thick of a wildly close race for the top of the Central Division and go back at it tonight in Lethbridge at 7 p.m. Medicine Hat (19-7-1-0) took a one-point lead over Lethbridge (17-9-0-4) for second in the division with Tuesday’s victory and they remain three points back of the Edmonton Oil Kings (18-6-4-2) for top spot entering tonight’s clash.
With so much on the line, Hurricanes alternate captain Dylan Cozens says staying out of the box will be paramount if they hope to avenge Tuesday’s loss and regain an edge on the Tabbies in the standings.
“It’s just managing the emotions, not getting frustrated, not taking stupid penalties because it does come back to bite us and it did,” said Cozens, who had two points in Tuesday’s loss to Medicine Hat, but was held off the scoresheet in a 3-1 setback to the Everett Silvertips Wednesday.
“We can’t take penalties like that, and when we do we’ve got to make sure we kill them off,” said Cozens. “That’s kind of where they pulled away from us, so we learn and we move on.”
The Tigers return home to the Canalta Centre Saturday to host the Silvertips (18-6-1-2) at 7:30 p.m.
