NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
The Medicine Hat Tigers salute the crowd after a 3-2 Game 4 loss Wednesday at Co-op Place against the Winnipeg Ice, falling 4-0 in their first round series.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers season came to a close Wednesday.
The Tigers dropped a close 3-2 contest to the Winnipeg Ice at Co-op Place to lose their first-round series in four straight games.
Head coach Willie Desjardins says making the playoffs helps them going forward as another hard lesson in a growing season.
“It helped us to play this team in particular with all their big boys playing,” Desjardins said. “But in saying that, we got a look at them but we didn’t win. We have to remember there’s a difference between being close and winning, there’s a big difference. Our boys played hard and you have to love it, they thought they were going to win. They thought we could win, that we could go back there to win another one and we thought we could come back home. We honestly believed that and that’s a starting point. It was a good group.”
The Tigers were outscored 20-9 but outshot Winnipeg 120-102 in the four games. Desjardins says the difference in Medicine Hat’s offence and Winnipeg’s finding the back of the net is the amount of high-end talent on the Manitoba team.
“We just didn’t finish as good as they did, they had a couple of big injuries but they’re a really good hockey team,” Desjardins said. “We pushed them, we were good for them, they didn’t get away with the series easy and that part was good. You can say all you want but you still lost, a loss is a loss and that’s not what we’re wanting to do but I can say I appreciated our group, our guys really tried.”
The series marked the Tigers’ return to the postseason for the first time since the 2018-19 season. They had a playoff spot clinched in the 2019-20 season that was ultimately cancelled due to COVID-19.
Before the close Game 4 loss, the Tigers were beat 7-2 in their first home playoff game of the series. They traded goals with Winnipeg and goals from Dru Krebs and Hunter St. Martin had tied the game up at 2-2 after 40 minutes, though Winnipeg took their final lead early in the third.
The Tigers finished their regular season with a record of 30-29-8-1, an improvement of 19 wins from their 11-win campaign in the 2021-22 season. Desjardins is thankful to everyone, inside and out of the organization, who stuck around this season and believed they could get to the playoffs and improve on the previous year.
“Just a big thank-you to the fans, I love the fans here and we really hope we can bring them something down the road,” Desjardins said. “With our players, the three 20-year-olds were outstanding, they really set a good culture here for time to come. I look at how far guys have come this year, it’s really exciting when you see that. We’re not where we have to be yet but we certainly are on a way better path than we were before.
“For me the lot of credit goes to Joe (Frazer), Josh (Maser), (Matt) Wonger, a lot of credit. Those guys work hard every day, it was a really good team to be part of, it was a good team who wanted to come to the rink every day because you get an honest effort. I know how hard the staff worked, Brent and Darrell (Maser) are outstanding, they support us. When things are bad they still supported us, it wasn’t that they jumped on when things got going, they were great with us when we were struggling a little bit at Christmas time.
“But the one thing I’d say is you have to love the resiliency of this group, they never gave up and you have to love that.”
Editors note: An earlier version of the story had an incorrect order of goals scored in Game 4.
