Lethbridge Hurricanes forward Trae Johnson cuts through two Medicine Hat Tigers defenders to the net for a shot on goaltender Harrison Meneghin during WHL action at VisitLethbridge.com Arena on Wednesday night. The Hurricanes beat the Tigers 7-6.--Southern Alberta Newspapers Justin Seward
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers aren’t shying away from a disappointing loss Wednesday night.
Captain Oasiz Wiesblatt was quick to shoulder the brunt of the loss, a 7-6 defeat at Lethbridge to the Hurricanes where he scored and had two assists but also led the team with three penalties. Medicine Hat took seven trips to the penalty box, allowing three power play goals while also scoring two shorthanded markers.
“We’re using it as a learning experience, something we just can’t do again,” Wiesblatt said. “We have to play a full 60 minutes but it starts with me, first off, with the penalties. The penalties aren’t good for us and we beat ourselves last night.”
The 20-year-old Wiesblatt leads the league in penalty minutes with 50, with teammate Nate Corbet racking up 45 PIMs for third most in the league.
“We learned more today because we lost,” Wiesblatt said. “If we had won, it would have been a little bit different. But when you lose, you learn a little bit more. But it’s just the simple things with us, penalties and getting pucks in deep.” As a team, the Tigers have taken 283 PIMs, 25 fewer than the Seattle Thunderbirds.
Wednesday’s loss was the quarter mark of the season for the Tigers, putting them on pace for 849 PIMs on the season. The 2023-24 WHL champion Moose Jaw Warriors took the second-fewest PIMs last regular season in 629, 15 fewer than the Scotty Munro champion Saskatoon Blades.
Head coach Willie Desjardins says the team spoke about penalties Thursday ahead of their ice availability.
“There’s some penalties we don’t need to take and there’s some penalties that do happen, that’s the way it is,” Desjardins said. “But we have to get way more disciplined to be successful. We just had guys who got tired yesterday and it was just a lot of ice time.”
The Tigers have played shorthanded since the start of the season, with players missing while at NHL camps and then injuries creeping up. Defenceman Josh Van Mulligen has been out of the lineup since suffering an upper-body injury on Sept. 28. They’ve been without forward Ryder Ritchie since he took a skate to the face on Oct. 9, and Hayden Harsanyi since Oct. 11 with a lower-body injury.
They’ve missed Markus and Liam Ruck who are playing for Canada at the U17s, and still wait the arrival of a healthy Cayden Lindstrom from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Rucks return from the U17s after the weekend at Co-op Place, facing the Edmonton Oil Kings tonight and the Moose Jaw Warriors on Saturday. Desjardins says both Van Mulligen and Ritchie are roughly 10 days away from a return. As for the rest of the lineup, he says the fatigue of playing shorthanded has caught up to them.
“When you’re playing lots of games and you’re playing three lines, it makes it hard,” Desjardins said. “We have to find ways to play everybody, but we can all be a little bit better. We need our defence to be good if we’re going to be able to play all our lines up front. The defence has been good at times this year, and we just have to have them good this weekend.”
The Tigers led 6-3 just before the halfway point of Wednesday’s game, with Andrew Basha and Hunter St. Martin scoring the shorthanded markers. Bryce Pickford and Jonas Woo found twine on Medicine Hat power plays, they were two-for-four on the power play.
Gavin McKenna scored and had an assist, keeping him atop the WHL scoring race with 10 goals and 32 points, tied for first in CHL scoring with 2025 NHL Draft eligible Brampton Steelheads forward Porter Martone.
Harrison Meneghin made 18 saves in his first return to Lethbridge since being acquired by the Tigers on Oct. 5. Looking at the other side of the deal, 19-year-old forward Shane Smith had two assists in his first game against the Tigers.
Through the quarter mark of the season, the Tigers sit fifth in the Eastern conference with a record of 9-8. They’ve scored the fifth-most goals (67) and surrendered 61, the ninth-highest total. They’ve had a four-game losing streak that brought an early sense of uncomfortableness and sparked change in net. They’ve also had a three-game win streak that gave off a feeling of a team in motion, finding their step.
With the weekend ahead and 51 games left on the calendar for his club, Desjardins says they have to be a better team if they want to make this season mean something.
“We say we want to win, but we don’t do the things we need to win,” Desjardins said. “It has to be pretty soon where the guys understand this is what we have to do to win and they buy-in and do it. Or else, you’re going to be inconsistent and we don’t want to be inconsistent. We want to be there all the time.
“We have some work to do to be there all the time. I believe this group can be a really good group, we just have to find our stride.”
