NEWS FILE PHOTO
Medicine Hat Tigers captain James Hamblin celebrates after scoring the opening goal in a Western Hockey League game against the Edmonton Oil Kings on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2019 at the Canalta Centre.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Coming off a massive four-player trade and a 5-0 loss to the Everett Silvertips on Saturday, the Medicine Hat Tigers entered a three-game road trip with something to prove.
Nineteen goals later and two victories later, they’re the talk of the Western Hockey League.
“We’re playing like we want to put teams on notice and we certainly have been doing that,” said forward Brett Kemp, whose Tigers boast one of the best records in the league at 22-8-1-0. “We want to go for it. We know we have a good group of guys here. We’re very skilled and we want to make a run for it.”
Chyzowski agreed the all-in feeling is shared throughout the dressing room, as the recent additions of forwards Cyle McNabb and Lukas Svjekovsky, and defencemen Dylan Plouffe and Nick Perna, have made the Tigers feel like true contenders.
“I think it just goes to show that we’re for real this year,” said Chyzowski. “We want to be one of the top teams in the league and we’re here to win. I think it adds a little bit of confidence in the dressing room and kind of gives that vibe that we’re going all-in this year so it’s exciting.”
Looking to shake off their third shutout loss of the season, the Tigers kick-started a spectacular surge through Saskatchewan with an 11-3 beatdown of the Saskatoon Blades Tuesday and finished it off with an 8-4 win over the reigning champion Prince Albert Raiders.
Tuesday’s blowout featured multiple-point outings from 10 different Tigers, but McNabb stole the show with a hat trick and an assist against his former team.
“My billet kids in Saskatoon were sitting behind the bench and when I got that third goal I saw them throw their hats, so that was fun,” said McNabb. “It was a little weird being on that other bench, the visiting bench … Obviously I wanted to prove (Saskatoon) wrong. Getting traded isn’t easy but I thought me and my linemates had a good game.”
Tigers assistant coach Joe Frazer says McNabb seemed to be building toward a night like Tuesday ever since joining the team on Nov. 26 in exchange for a sixth-round 2021 bantam draft pick.
“You can see that he’s getting more and more confident,” said Frazer. “He’s got great speed, he’s a bigger guy, he’s really good down low with the puck. Playing with Elijah (Brown) and Bryan Lockner, these two games they were really good for us. I know he had a huge smile after the game, scoring against his old team, so that was awesome to see.”
While it was the feel-good story of the evening, McNabb’s performance wasn’t the only career best from a Tiger in the double-digit victory, as captain James Hamblin set up five goals – including two off the stick of Svejkovsky – to take over first place in the WHL’s scoring race. He went on to add an assist in Prince Albert to sit at 49 points on the season.
“I think it’s just a lot of hard work paying off,” said Hamblin, adding Svjekovsky shows a lot of potential on his line with Corson Hopwo. “I think we still need to continue to build on the chemistry but it’s been really good so far. He’s really skilled and pretty quick too.”
The Tigers carried their torrential offensive pace into the Art Hauser Centre the next night, striking for eight more goals in a victory that featured hat tricks from Kemp and Chyzowski, as well as another career-best outing from rookie Cole Sillinger. Kemp finished with five points, Chyzowski had four, while the 16-year-old Sillinger picked up a goal with five assists to jump atop the WHL’s rookie scoring race with 34 points in just 26 games.
“We were getting lots of chances early and Kemp put two home in one shift so I think that kind of set us off,” said Sillinger. “(The Raiders) have, I think, 15 guys who won the WHL last year. We knew they weren’t going to back down, so we just had to play our game.”
Frazer added the line of Chyzowski, Kemp and Sillinger has been consistently building on previous bests ever since forming to start the season.
“I think the last two or three weeks they’ve really taken off. When you watch them and they play the right way, they have so much skill and speed together that it’s really hard to contain them for 60 minutes,” said Frazer. “The great thing is that it’s different lines, too. Lockner’s line there on Friday had five then Chyzowski’s line had seven (Wednesday) so it’s a pretty good week.”
Lost in the haze of red lights has been a strong performance from backup Garin Bjorklund. The 17-year-old netminder has been tasked with filling the void left by Mads Søgaard while the 6-foot-7 Dane competes at the IIHF World Junior Championship Division 1 tournament, and he’s been posting impressive numbers in a demanding stretch of games.
“These definitely aren’t easy teams we’ve been playing,” Kemp said of Bjorklund, who has gone 4-1-0-0 through five consecutive starts in Søgaard’s absence. “For him to come in and step up like he has, it definitely shows a lot. It shows how good our goalie tandem is.”
The Tigers will look to pick up where they left off Friday against the Rebels in Red Deer. While the Rebels have struggled to a 10-17-0-3 record so far this season, Hamblin says they’re always a threat inside Westerner Park Centrium.
“You can never take them lightly, especially in Red Deer,” said Hamblin. “They’re even better when they’re at home so we know they’re going to be coming hard at us – every team is going to be, knowing where we are in the standings – so we have to be ready for that.”
