NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers defenceman scans his options with the puck in the offensive end during the first period of the Tigers' 10-7 win Sept. 15 at Co-op Place over the Swift Current Broncos.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers won’t have to worry about rookie mistakes coming from their defence corps.
The Tigers enter the 2023-24 WHL regular season with one of, if not the most veteran defence in the league, led by 20-year-olds Dru Krebs, Rhett Parsons and Latvian Bogdans Hodass. Returning 18-year-olds Reid Andresen and Josh Van Mulligen help round out the group, with the addition of rookies Blake Ekren-Bratton (18), Nate Corbet (17) and Matt Paranych (16).
There’s a lot of excitement within the organization about how the older group can help the team as a whole.
“We have a lot of veteran guys who have been in the league a while now, so we need to make sure we’re hard to play against,” associate coach Joe Frazer says. “Whether that’s having great gap control or finishing our checks hard, playing hard in front of the net helping out our goaltenders. And moving the puck quick to our forwards because we have a lot of speed and skill up front. So it’s about making sure we’re moving the puck quick and getting our forwards open space.”
The five returning defencemen have a combined 699 games of regular season WHL action between them. Krebs is the most tenured, with 211 games under his belt. He’s also been part of two NHL training camps with the Washington Capitals after being drafted in 2021, and was at the Florida Panthers development camp this summer.
He says they’re just looking to make it difficult to be scored on, help the younger forwards and also contribute offensively.
“We take pride in what we do and our role is to keep pucks out of our defensive end, break pucks out, just do whatever you can to win games,” Krebs said. “If we can contribute in winning games, that’s all we can really care for.”
Krebs is starting the season paired with Parsons, a continuation of last season’s pairings. The two will be relied upon as a shutdown pairing at even strength and on the penalty kill for head coach Willie Desjardins. With that age and experience, Parsons says it’s about holding themselves to the standard they’ve played with over the last couple seasons.
“Experience is a big thing with carrying three 20-year-old defence, it’s obviously something you don’t see every day,” Parsons said. “Carrying us three, that’s obviously a veteran presence, you have Andy and JVM, too, and then we have some young guys coming in. That’ll be good for them.”
Hodass has played with Andresen during preseason, both only playing in the Tigers’ final game of the exhibition season as roster spots in previous games were used to make decisions on cuts. The 2021 import draft pick believes the Tigers’ defensive group can become the best in the league and expects them to be good every night.
He’s looking forward to playing with Andresen and pushing for the ultimate goal, a championship.
“I like to play with him, we have good communication with each other and we play pretty good, we try to play our best every game and play not only defence, but try to show something in the offensive end too,” Hodass said. “Everything is the same this year, we have the long-term goals of signing a pro contract and winning a championship. We’ve been building for those years, and this year we can go far.”
