NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Brendan Lee hugs defenceman Dru Krebs after scoring his first of three goals in Wednesday's 8-2 win over the Edmonton Oil Kings at Co-op Place.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The math is simple for the Medicine Hat Tigers to clinch a spot in the Western Hockey League playoffs – just win.
With two games remaining, both against the Swift Current Broncos, all the Tigers need to do to punch their ticket to the post season is pick up two points against the Central division rival. A win either tonight in Swift or on Saturday at Co-op Place and the Tigers are in, even if they lose both games in overtime, those two points would be enough.
Associate coach Joe Frazer says they’re looking forward to the opportunity ahead.
“We’ve played well against them,” Frazer said. “There’s lots of games where we’ve been up and they’ve had some good pushes in the third that got us. We’re excited about the challenge, we talk to the guys, if you go back to training camp and we said all you had to do was win one of the last two games of the year, I think we would take it. Guys have done a great job earning this opportunity and now it’s just relying on everything we’ve learned all year and just going after it.”
The Tigers and Broncos have faced off six times this season entering play tonight, with Swift Current holding a stark advantage with a record of 5-0-0-1, Medicine Hat’s lone win coming in a shootout.
Medicine Hat enters the final weekend off an 8-2 win over the last place Edmonton Oil Kings on Wednesday at Co-op Place.
Head coach Willie Desjardins said after that win they will have to be their best to give themselves a chance against Swift but is looking forward to the push for the playoffs.
“We’ve had the whole year, we’ve worked the whole year for this chance,” Desjardins said. “That’s what we wanted and at the trade deadline if we said, we’d have this chance, we would have been excited.”
Two points against Swift Current would keep them in the eighth and final playoff spot, setting the Tigers up for a first-round series with the powerhouse Winnipeg Ice.
There is an outside chance the Tigers can push themselves into seventh, which is occupied by Calgary. The Hitmen have two more games remaining, a home-and-home series with WHL-worst Edmonton on Saturday and Sunday. If the Oil Kings manage to beat Calgary once in regulation and the Tigers sweep the weekend, they jump into seventh.
But the Tigers aren’t worried about how they can advance in the standings, they are solely focused on getting into the dance.
“We have to go into it and we can’t overthink it,” forward Tyler MacKenzie said. “You don’t want guys holding their sticks too tight and being too tense with it but we just have to go in there and play our game. We’ve worked all year for this and we’re a family here, so we know what needs to be done and we have each other’s backs.
“If a guy is down or something we always have guys there. It’s about focusing on ourselves and knowing that we’re going to go win that game.”
