NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers general manager and head coach Willie Desjardins shouts directions during a 6-3 win over the Moose Jaw Warriors on Dec. 10 at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Western Hockey League teams are running out of time to gear up and get ready for the playoffs.
The WHL trade deadline is set for Tuesday at 3 p.m. and is building toward being a busy day around the league. Speculation will fly until the last second on whether the Regina Pats will trade league superstar, Team Canada hero and future No. 1 pick in the NHL draft Connor Bedard, or retain him and add for a final playoff run with him on the roster.
The focus in Medicine Hat for the Tigers is to try to get better this season while also improving the roster over the next couple seasons.
The Tigers are in the dance for the final playoff spot in the Eastern conference, sitting in 10th place with a record of 14-18-5-1, only two points behind the Brandon Wheat Kings in eighth entering play Friday.
Head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins says they, like all clubs, are always looking to improve and will wear those two hats – the present and the future – while doing so.
“We would love to get a little stronger this year; would be great to add one or two guys but we’ll just have to see what happens with it,” Desjardins said. “It’s a different year, there’s probably six teams that have a really good chance and that’s going to put pressure on them because they’ve built a lot and to let it go right until the end is going to be hard.”
There were a total of nine deals made at 2022’s trade deadline, with Medicine Hat’s only move being a 20-year-old swap with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, sending Corson Hopwo the other way for Logan Barlage and a 2022 fourth-round pick.
The Tigers made two moves ahead of that deadline, sending Lukas Svejkovsky to Seattle on Dec. 27, 2021 for a 2022 first rounder, ’23 conditional second and a ’25 conditional third. A day later they took part in an 11-piece, three-team trade with the Saskatoon Blades and Prince George Cougars, which netted them defenceman Pasha Bocharov, forward Brendan Lee and a 2025 fifth-round pick.
Those moves came in a different era of Tigers hockey that was focused solely on the future and has since reaped the rewards with first overall pick and top prospect Gavin McKenna, 16th overall pick (from the Seattle deal) Hayden Harsanyi and other prospects who will look to play their way onto the roster full-time next season.
Desjardins says this year’s deadline will bring the approach of seeing what comes up and reading the situation from there. It’s a different state from last year but with the same goal in mind: getting the Tigers back to championship quality as quick as possible.
“We knew we need to get better, we want to be a championship team again, that’s what we want, that’s our goal and sometimes you have to pay a price to get there, and we’re paying a little bit of a price to do that,” Desjardins said. “But our focus has never changed here. We want good things for the franchise, we want good things for the fans in the city and we’ve taken huge steps.”
Whether the Tigers add to the roster this season, the continued improvement from the team’s 16-year-olds and those above them will go a long way to making a playoff push.
“Lots of those guys who have played for SAHA and were our prospects, there’s some good players there,” Desjardins said. “Those are guys that are gonna be our future that are gonna carry us, and that’s exciting for us. We have young guys on our team now, looking at how far (Tomas) Mrsic and (Cayden) Lindstrom have come, how far (Shane) Smith, (Hunter) St. Martin, (Andrew) Basha, JVM (Josh Van Mulligen) and Andy (Reid Andresen). It’s big and there’s lots of good things to see and there’s lots of promise ahead of us.”
