NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Garin Bjorklund kicks out his pad to make a save on Swift Current Broncos centre Cole Nagy during a Western Hockey League game at the Canalta Centre on Tuesday, March 3, 2020.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
The Medicine Hat Tigers got 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.
“I think it’s just a matter of staying on them for a full 60 minutes,” said Chyzowski, whose Tigers outshot Swift Current 52-21 Tuesday after peppering Regina’s Donovan Buskey with 42 shots in a 2-0 win Saturday. “It might not happen in the first period, but we’ll get to them eventually.”
The Tigers (38-19-2-1) have eight games left in the regular season and close out their campaign with a home-and-home against the 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 Tuesday’s 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 night past Hat netminder Garin Bjorklund off a turnover in the Tigers zone.
“Early on in the game things didn’t come as quick as we wanted,” said Svejkovsky. “We just kind of stuck with our game plan. I think we just chipped away at them and it was nice to get the two points there.”
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.
“I think we had 25 chances by our count in the second period alone,” said Tigers assistant coach Joe Frazer. “The leadership is doing a really good job of just keeping everybody on the same page and making sure we’re following the game plan for the 60 minutes. I think if we just keep doing the same, sooner or later the dam will break.”
Chyzowski completed the hat trick with just over five minutes left in regulation by beating Poulter unassisted from the slot – but apparently only one hat was thrown by the crowd of 2,319.
“I wasn’t really looking for them,” said Chyzowski. “Our line was just working. We had a lot of support all around the ice. I think we were just working hard and the chances were coming from that.”
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.
“He’s a great goalie and he made a lot of good saves,” said Broncos alternate captain Hayden Ostir, a former Tiger who will face his old team two more times in his final WHL season. “Some of these guys are still my best buddies so it would be good to give it back to them. They’ve given it to us a few times.”
