NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Dallon Melin celebrates after scoring a short handed penalty shot goal Sunday in a 5-1 win over the Regina Pats in front of a sold-out Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers continued their push for the playoffs in a big way this weekend.
The Tigers swept their weekend slate, beating the Lethbridge Hurricanes 4-2 on Saturday before making themselves the star of the show Sunday beating Connor Bedard and the Regina Pats 5-1 in-front of a historic sold-out crowd.
Head coach Willie Desjardins described Sunday’s sold-out contest as a special evening.
“It’s great for our fans, I like Medicine Hat so much,” Desjardins said. “I like the fans, I really do. I like the old atmosphere when we used to be going all the time to win and I want to get that back.
“Hopefully the fans will get on board with it and they’ll get excited, too, and it’ll be a place where they can come – it’s hard when you’re having a tough time, you come to the rink and we’re not good, that’s even tougher. It’d be nice, if people are having a tough day and you can come out and you can see a good club playing hard, so we hope to get back to that.”
Tigers top prospect Gavin McKenna played in both games, registering two assists Sunday. He was happy to help contribute in the wins and play in front of 6,178 fans against the Pats.
“Huge two wins, it’s coming close to the end of the year, every point counts,” McKenna said. “To get those two wins against those teams that we’re obviously fighting with, it was huge for the team.”
The two wins over the weekend mark three straight for the Tigers and give them 14 of a possible 16 points in their last eight games. They sit in the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern conference.
Desjardins says the point streak has helped them climb back into the playoff race, and he has been impressed by how his younger players have handled the playoff-like games, but says they have more work to do if they want to play meaningful hockey this spring.
“It’s nice to get some wins, we still have a long ways to go and it’s going to get harder, ” Desjardins said. “It’s not going to get easier. But we talked earlier, our young guys are getting older, we expected after Christmas we would see where they were at and we knew we had to stay in the hunt. We got a little far behind but hopefully we can gain some ground here and get back in it.”
Oasiz Wiesblatt led the way in Saturday’s win against Lethbridge with two goals, including the game winner. Cayden Lindstrom and Tyler MacKenzie also found the back of the net and Evan May made 35 saves for the win. Wiesblatt also scored his 20th goal of the year in Sunday’s win.
He says both Tigers wins, which came in comeback fashion, show a lot about how the group is maturing.
“It just shows how resilient we are, and when Regina scored then we pushed back and just stayed with our system 40 by 40 and just kept the pressure on them,” Wiesblatt said. “Our group’s gaining confidence every day and it all starts in practice. Just competing hard in practice and in games.”
Pasha Bocharov, Kurtis Smythe, Rhett Parsons and Dallon Melin also all scored in Sunday’s win, Beckett Langkow made 30 saves.
Melin’s goal came on a shorthanded penalty shot in the third period, marking the Tigers’ ninth tally of the year while down a man.
Coming out of the weekend with the two points and in a playoff spot, Melin says they were going to enjoy it Sunday night but had to get refocused come this morning.
“We’re getting back to work and we’ve been having really good practice weeks too on this stretch, so we know we have to stay the course,” Melin said. “Keep working hard, getting in the gym, getting good practices in and just getting ready for the next weekend.”
The Tigers (21-21-7-1) have a home-and-home series with the Hurricanes that see team heading down Highway 3 on Friday before hosting Lethbridge on Saturday.
Before Sunday’s game Melin was awarded the Tigers player of the month for January, earning himself a free suit from Boys on Third/Labels. He says he has “terrible style” and plans to consult Pasha Bocharov, who he deems has much better fashion. Melin says he might bring Bocharov’s Escondido, Calif. style to his hometown of Czar, Alta.
“Anything works in Czar, we’re pretty accepting people and we’re not too traditional,” Melin joked.
