NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Beckett Langkow slides to his right following the puck in the first period of their 3-1 loss to the Prince Albert Raiders Tuesday night at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers enter the weekend looking to snap a losing streak and get back to the winning ways from earlier in the season.
The Tigers have a home-and-home series with the Moose Jaw Warriors, which gets underway tonight at Co-op Place before the two teams hit the road for the Jaw on Saturday.
They are coming off a 3-2 loss Tuesday at home against the Prince Albert Raiders, their sixth in a row. Tigers associate coach Joe Frazer said after practice Thursday there was a lot of positives to take from that loss.
“When you rewatch the game, by our account we had 42 scoring chances and we only gave up around 23. So those are those games where if we keep doing that and playing the right way, pucks will start going in,” Frazer said. “There’s a lot of positives to build from Tuesday’s game, we really liked how we played. There’s obviously some things we still have to clean up with the discipline. But for the most part, it was pretty good and if we play like that, the results will come.”
Besides a 5-1 loss to the Calgary Hitmen on Nov. 4 the Tigers have trailed by only one in the last half of the third period during the streak and forced overtime twice. Being within one and right on the edge of wins has been the constant for Medicine Hat to start the year, with one mistake or play going the other way for the loss.
Head coach Willie Desjardins said after Tuesday’s loss the team has to be better.
“There is no reason tonight, there was no reason and we weren’t able to stay with them shift after shift,” Desjardins said. “Some guys have to be better, they just have to be better, and it kills us.”
Desjardins turned down the idea of changes to the roster and said they just have to keep working to find a way to win.
“We’ve been good enough to win lots of games, we just haven’t won them,” Desjardins said. “Last year, we weren’t good enough to win games. So it’s a step in the right direction, we just have to find ways.”
The players held a players-only meeting after the loss to Prince Albert, and net minder Beckett Langkow, who made 25 saves in the game, said the message was about togetherness.
“We’re a group and we’re going to make sure we stick together,” Langkow said. “It’s not going to be one guy who pushes through this. It’s going to be everybody, and we need everybody playing together to get through this.”
The Tigers sit with a 4-9-3 record putting them in fourth in the Central division and 11th in the Eastern conference. Moose Jaw (10-6) is in third place in the East division and fourth in the conference. Frazer says the games will be a good test on both sides of the puck.
“It’s team defence, they have a lot of offensive skill, with (Denton) Mateychuk on the back end who loves to join the rush, (Jagger) Firkus and (Brayden) Yager, high-end guys,” Frazer said. “It all starts by making sure we’re getting above the puck in the (offensive) zone, making sure they have to come through all of us. So tracking back is going to be important, but we really harp on seven-second exits. We want to get back as a group of five and it makes sure that we don’t have to play defence.”
Even though they haven’t pulled in desired results, there have been a lot of Tigers having strong games, and Frazer says if they can continue doing the right things, it’ll turnout good for the team.
“Dru Krebs has been really good on the back end, he’s eaten a lot of minutes, playing big minutes on the power play, penalty kill, shutting down top guys – he’s been really good,” Frazer said. “Kurtis Smythe’s line gave us a ton of energy and scoring chances last game, so we can roll four lines. (Andrew) Basha, Oasiz (Wiesblatt) and (Brendan) Lee’s line last game had a lot chances and that was the most confident and comfortable Gavin (McKenna) has looked over the last four. “He’s starting to really feel the league out.”
This weekend’s slate will mark the end of McKenna’s six-game emergency recall with the Tigers, with Cayden Lindstrom and Tomas Mrsic set to return from the U17 Hockey Challenge sometime after Saturday. Tonight’s game, which will streamed online by TSN, gets underway at 7 p.m. with a Remembrance Day ceremony.
