NEWS FILE PHOTO
Medicine Hat Tigers defenceman Bryce Pickford heads to the bench to celebrate a goal in the first period of a 7-3 win Nov. 30, 2024 at Co-op Place over the Calgary Hitmen.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Defence is important to all team sports, some like to say it even wins championships. For the Medicine Hat Tigers, defence will be the early backbone of the team.
The Tigers, unlike most defending WHL champions, return five of their six defencemen from last season’s title-winning core. Overager Josh Van Mulligen and 19-year-olds Bryce Pickford, Jonas Woo, Veeti Väisänen and Niilopekka Muhonen are all expected back with the club for the season.
The two Finnish blue liners will start the year at NHL camps, missing Saturday’s season opener against the Regina Pats. The Tigers have plenty of options in 2007-born U.S. defenceman Kyle Heger, returnee Tyson Moss (2007), a pair of 2008-born rookies in Riley Steen and Koray Bozkaya, as well as 2009-born Luke Warrener, who was just drafted in May.
It’s a group that gives off a lot of confidence for the Tigers, and for associate coach Joe Frazer, plenty of options as players compete for jobs.
“There’s a lot of competition, five guys returning from last year’s championship team, but the young guys, they’ve been here a while,” Frazer said. “Whether we drafted them at 15 and this is their third camp, or you have a guy like Moss who came in halfway through the year and went through the playoff run with us. So those guys know how we want to play. It’s been very competitive back there, and as always, all those guys are very capable of playing in the league.”
Van Mulligen anchors the blue line as the lone overager back there, having learned from the likes of Cole Clayton, Daniel Baker, Rhett Parsons and Dru Krebs as he’s amassed 199 career WHL games. The Medicine Hat product says he learned a lot over the years and hopes to pass some of the knowledge on throughout his final season in the WHL.
“Just so many of those kind of older D-men helped my career and they set the culture here, and I think that’s what kind of ended up with us winning last year, the culture for guys coming in from the past,” Van Mulligen said. “It’s important and I just kind of want to leave my impact now.”
He says losing the last game of the season, being 60 minutes away from a Memorial Cup championship, stung more than he thought it would. Van Mulligen hopes they can use that as a motivator this season, with as many returnees as they have, to try to get back to that final game.
“We want to win the Memorial Cup, so we have a lot to prove this season,” Van Mulligen said. “Everyone’s going to be after us, too, as the defending champs, so I think we have to make sure we’re ready every single night and just continue getting better.”
Frazer says it’s going to take some time before they can narrow down what the group willlook like for a majority of the season. With the Fins away at NHL camps, Frazer hopes they can stick for a long time and get some preseason games, all experience to be passed down to the rest of the group.
Pickford, fresh off Montreal Canadiens’ rookie camp, hopes his Finnish teammates get the pro hockey experience they’re all chasing. He likes seeing the younger blue liners get their chance with both Väisänen and Muhonen away.
“That’s awesome they’re still there, I hope they don’t come back, I hope they make the (NHL) team,” Pickford said. “It’s also good for younger guys, they get a shot at playing in the lineup and seeing how it is with this crowd because I’m sure it’s going to be completely sold out, so it will be fun for them to see how the league is and how our team plays. So it’s good for them to step up and take a role while they’re here.”
Pickford was acquired ahead of last season, brought in from the Seattle Thunderbirds on the same day the Tigers traded for his D-partner Jonas Woo from the Wenatchee Wild. Woo also just returned from an NHL camp, skating with the Carolina Hurricanes.
In his time with Winnipeg and the lone year in Wenatchee, Woo was the younger defenceman just eager to learn from those around him. Last season he stepped in and had a career season with 11 goals and 43 points in 57 games. He believes they can take a step as a defence core and he hopes to help lead them and his new teammates through that.
“It’s been a cool role, I’m taking on that leadership role a little bit this year, so taking in the new guys is a big thing and just making them feel welcome. Taking them out and getting them to know them is a big part of our culture here,” Woo said. “So that’s definitely a big thing for us.”
His defence partner, Pickford, scored 20 goals in his first season with the Tigers, leading the WHL in defenceman scoring before suffering an injury on Feb. 1 that held him out until the second last weekend of the season.
Pickford scored 13 goals in the Tigers’ run to the championship this summer, his second Ed Chynoweth Cup win, setting a modern CHL record for goals by a defenceman in a single playoffs. He enters the year with the same goal, looking to get back to the WHL Championship series and vie for that third ring. He also has a personal goal, one that would surely help the Tigers on the path toward the team goal.
“I hope I can put up 50 goals this year, that’s my goal and I hope I can just try and help the team win,” Pickford said.
The Tigers have had 34 skaters score 50 or more goals in a single season; the highest goal total from the blue line in a single year was Kris Russell’s 32 in 2006-07. The WHL record for goals in a single season by a defenceman is 50, set by Lawrence Sacharuk with the Saskatoon Blades in 1971-72.
Has his shot improved enough over the summer to reach that league record?
“I guess we’ll find out Saturday night.”
