NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN — Medicine Hat Tigers centre Ryan Chyzowski leads his team back to the bench after scoring a goal against the Swift Current Broncos during a Western Hockey League game at the Canalta Centre on Tuesday.
The Medicine Hat Tigers cut to within two points of the Lethbridge Hurricanes for second in the Western Hockey League’s Central Division with a 5-2 victory over the Swift Current Broncos on Tuesday night at the Canalta Centre.
Ryan Chyzowski netted the second hat trick of his career and Lukas Svejkovsky added a pair of assists to lead the Tigers to their third consecutive victory despite running into another hot goaltender in Swift Current’s Isaac Poulter.
The Tigers (38-19-2-1) now have eight games left in the regular season and will close out their campaign with a home-and-home against the Lethbridge Hurricanes (37-16-2-5) that could determine home ice between the Highway 3 rivals in the first round of the playoffs.
Helping that case, Tuesday’s victory pushed the Tigers six points ahead of the Calgary Hitmen (34-22-4-1) for third. They’ll have a chance to stretch the gap to eight when they host Calgary on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Medicine Hat came out hot and stole the early lead just 44 seconds into the game. After gaining an offensive zone face-off, Svejkovsky found Chyzowski all alone in the slot for the opening tally.
Swift Current pushed back three minutes later when Aiden Bulych ripped his team’s first shot of the game past Hat netminder Garin Bjorklund off a turnover in the Tigers zone.
The Tigers picked up the pressure in the second and Parker Gavlas found Baxter Anderson on the doorstep with a backhand pass to re-establish a lead five minutes into the period.
Medicine Hat continued to pepper Poulter — throwing 25 pucks his way in the second for 42 through 40 minutes — and Svejkovsky found Chyzowski in the slot again to make it 3-1 with 28.4 seconds left in the middle frame.
Chyzowski completed the hat trick with just over five minutes left in regulation by beating Poulter unassisted from the slot — but no hats were thrown by the crowd of 2,319.
Swift Current mustered a response from Erik Houk just over a minute later, but Bjorklund refused to let anything else past him in a 19-save victory.
James Hamblin put the game away with a late empty-netter.
Poulter took the loss on 47 saves, dropping Swift Current to 10-46-1-3.
