NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins stands with a smile during an in-game celebration of his 400th win during the first period of a 6-3 loss against the Red Deer Rebels on Dec. 16 at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins draws a lot of positives from the Medicine Hat Tigers’ first 35 games but says they will have to be better if they want to remain in the playoff hunt.
The Tigers sit with a record of 13-17-4-1 at the Holiday break, good for eighth in the Eastern conference and holding onto the final wild-card playoff spot. Desjardins says his team got off to a quicker start than he expected but says they’ll need a stronger second half to contend.
“Teams just took us so lightly from last year, they weren’t prepared,” Desjardins said. “Then when we showed that we were pretty decent, teams have started preparing for us. We’ve won a lot of good games, some big games and in tough buildings – that says a lot about our team. We’ve played Red Deer hard every time, we played Saskatoon hard and we had good games with Calgary. All the teams on our side we’ve played well against which is really good for us. But saying that, we do want to get a playoff spot and everybody’s going to be better in the second half.
“Swift Current is going be better, Brandon will get better, so it’s not going to come easily, we’re going to have to get going. For us it’s the (Shane) Smith’s, the (Hunter) St. Martin’s, Josh Van Mulligen’s, guys who are coming in first time, Cayden Lindstrom and Tomas Mrsic that we need to see improve, and they all have improved. That’s going to be really important for us.”
Desjardins says they are no different from any other team relying on younger players stepping up and getting better mid-season.
“It’s them seeing where they have to get to then deciding if they want to put the work in to get there,” Desjardins said. “Part of it is learning structure systems, knowing what to do because once you know what to do, then you can go hard. And then it’s being held accountable so you become more consistent at it. There’s lots of things that go into it but I think we’re at a spot where we understand what we want to do now and it’s up to us to get more consistent in games and practices.”
The Tigers will be without St. Martin when they get back to action on Tuesday in Lethbridge against the Hurricanes while the 17-year-old recovers from the facial injury he sustained Dec. 13 in Saskatoon against the Blades. Desjardins says replacing St. Martin’s role in the lineup and especially on the penalty kill will have to be done through committee.
“It’s funny, you don’t realize how much you depend on those guys till they’re gone,” Desjardins said. “The last game he was in, I thought we played so well in the first period in Saskatoon and it was like, ‘OK now we can start rolling.’ But losing one guy makes a difference to us, it’s just the way we play. Because we do play four lines, we try to go consistent. Once we lost him we certainly recognized that he’s an important part of our team.”
Entering the Holidays, the Tigers were one of the busiest teams in the Western Hockey League as they played 10 games in 20 days during the final two weeks before the break. They lead the league in games played with 35. Desjardins doesn’t see it as an excuse but says the break comes at a good time for his team.
“The whole league has probably being sick, we’ve played more hockey than anybody and lots of our guys have a cold and have been battling it for two or three weeks,” Desjardins said. “So it was really good they played as hard as they did. For us we have to get healthy and fresh for the second half, because we’re going to have to be good and we’re going to have to be good early.”
After facing the Hurricanes on Tuesday the Tigers will have their first matchup of the season against Swift Current when the Broncos come to Co-op Place on Wednesday. The Broncos are only two points behind the Tigers in the standings and have five games in hand with a record of 14-15-0-1. The two Central division clubs will play one another five times before Jan. 20, once more on Feb. 28 before ending the season with a home-and-home matchup.
Desjardins is excited to be part of a playoff race again and says the real challenge is ahead for the Tigers to see if they have what it takes to get to postseason hockey.
“Last year it wasn’t that we just didn’t make the playoffs, we didn’t have a very good year at all. So we had to do big strides just to get back,” Desjardins said. “Teams took us lightly last year, so this season when they did that we beat him. But now they’re more prepared for us, so the real challenge is coming.
“Our guys have gotten better, there’s times we’ve gone against some pretty good teams and have done really well. So it’s us just doing that over a period of time, maybe getting a little bit stronger, a little quicker, things like that.”
