NEWS PHOTO RYAN MCCRACKEN - Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Garin Bjorklund stares down a shot during a Western Hockey League game against the Lethbridge Hurricanes at the Canalta Centre on Saturday, Jan. 18. Bjorklund was ranked No. 5 among North American goaltenders by NHL Central Scouting on Wednesday.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Garin Bjorklund’s rookie season may have been cut short by the spread of COVID-19, but the 17-year-old goaltender still had something to celebrate when he got up on Wednesday morning.
After compiling a 20-5-1-0 record with the Medicine Hat Tigers this season, Bjorklund earned a nod as one of the top draft eligible goalies on the continent by taking the No. 5 spot among North American netminders in NHL Central Scouting’s final rankings.
“I had a late morning this morning, so when I looked at my phone I had a few text messages,” Bjorklund said in a phone interview. “It means a lot. It definitely helps having a lot of good players on my team who helped me and pushed me to get to where I am right now.”
Bjorklund was a key factor in Medicine Hat’s 41-19-2-1 season, closing out his shortened campaign with a 2.91 goals against average, an .897 save percentage and a lengthy highlight reel of game-changing stops.
The 6-foot-2, 170-pound Grande Prairie product becomes the second Hat netminder to earn a top-five ranking in as many years, as 19-year-old Dane Mads Søgaard – who shared the crease with Bjorklund this season – entered last year’s draft ranked second among North American goaltenders before going 37th overall to the Ottawa Senators in the second round.
“Having him as a good buddy, a role model and someone to look up to, I think that definitely helped me with my rookie season,” said Bjorklund. “Watching him go through all this last year definitely helped me this year, showed me what I needed to get better on and helped me to keep pushing. My goal was to get drafted, and hopefully I can do that.”
With any luck, Bjorklund will be able to attend the draft in person if the NHL is able to go ahead with the event – which was slated for the end of June but has since been postponed – at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
For now, he’s biding his time in Grande Prairie and doing what he can to stay both mentally and physically prepared for the next chapter.
“I wake up and get a good meal in me then I head to this place where I work, it’s called AK Hockey. It has a bunch of skating and shooting and workout spots,” said Bjorklund, adding he works out and practices shooting at AK with his brother, Paycen, a forward with the Tri-City Americans. “Obviously it’s not open so I’ll do a quick little workout and shoot some pucks, do that every day then come back and go Ski-Dooing to finish off my day. My days have been pretty repetitive but I don’t get too bored.”
Svejkovsky sits 165th
Fellow Tabby Lukas Svejkovsky also earned a place on NHL Central Scouting’s radar Wednesday as No. 165 among North American skaters.
The 18-year-old right-winger joined the Tigers through a December trade with the Vancouver Giants and went on to finish the season seventh in team scoring with 18 goals and 20 in 52 games – 34 of which were spent in Medicine Hat.
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