The Medicine Hat Tigers gather after the final buzzer in their season finale Friday, a 3-0 loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings. -- NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Willie Desjardins is thankful for Medicine Hat Tigers fans.
“The fans were unbelievable to us, like they really, really were,” Desjardins said. “It’s easy to be with teams in the good times but these fans were great for us and we’ll reward them. We’ll come back and we’ll go hard.”
Desjardins, the Medicine Hat Tigers head coach and general manager, spoke to the News Friday night after the final game of the 2021-22 season, a 3-0 loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings. When asked for his thoughts on the season and Friday’s game, Desjardins said two groups impressed him: the fans and his players.
“I didn’t think our guys ever quit, but saying that, (this season) was tough for the fans,” Desjardins said. “Excuses are whatever, we went young… we had lots of guys out ,a lot of our older players, we were playing in such a young lineup. Nobody said well, then we should lose, everybody thought we should win. So that says a lot about the team.”
Before the game Friday, the Tigers honoured their players with season awards and recognized the team’s three graduating players, Logan Barlage, Carter Chorney and captain Daniel Baker. Desjardins said losing Baker halfway through the season with injury hurt the Tigers more than people realize, and spoke highly of Barlage and Chorney who joined the club midway through a tough season.
“You take that guy out of a lot of other teams’ lineups and they are certainly not as good,” Desjardins said.
“Those two guys hadn’t been with us, easy to just mail it in – and just heart and soul, both of them gave everything they could. They were proud to wear our jersey and they’ll always talk proudly of that jersey and that’s a pretty great thing. Says a lot about the organization, says a lot about them that even though the year was what it was, they still speak highly of that jersey.”
Desjardins said it’s always good when they can reward individuals for their work, and they had a lot of great performances this season.
“We had a lot of great performances this year in a tough situation, you won’t get much of a tougher situation in a year,” Desjardins said. “Especially when we go in, we never came in with the mindset we weren’t going to have a good year. So it’s tough for us but it was good to see guys get honoured.”
Friday’s loss puts Medicine Hat’s final record on the season at 11-53-3-1, giving them 26 points on the year – last in the WHL with their lowest point total in franchise history.
Desjardins said he likes his group of players heading into the summer and the work started Saturday, when their off-season began.
“Do we have a lot of work? Yes we do. I like the group, I think they are committed to working hard and we basically have this same group again next year so we should be a step ahead to start the year,” Desjardins said.
The first order of business for the six WHL teams out of the playoff race, including the Tigers, is the WHL’s prospects draft on May 19.
The lottery to determine the draft order is Thursday, with the Tigers holding the highest odds of winning the first overall pick at 28.5 per cent. Medicine Hat also owns another first-round pick in this year’s draft, acquired from the Seattle Thunderbirds in the Lukas Svejkovsky deal. Desjardins called the draft a “big one” for the Tigers.
“We’ve got to be good in it, we have to put our time in there.”
On top of focusing on acquiring future talent to don the orange and black, Desjardins said they will look at their game plans and stay on top of their players as they prepare for the season ahead.
“Our work ethic has to be exceptional during the summer and there’s guys, if they get a chance to get in the gym a little bit, they’re gonna be a lot better players,” Desjardins said. “We’re looking forward to seeing what happens in the fall. But, you can say whatever you want, but we’ll see when guys come back what they’ve done.”
