NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Andrew Basha looks up to the scoreboard after celebrating his third period goal in his first game with the Tigers, a 6-3 win Friday at Co-op Place over the Moose Jaw Warriors. The 20-year-old forward was reassigned Friday by the Calgary Flames and the AHL Wranglers.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com
The Medicine Hat Tigers threw a ‘welcome back bash’ on Friday night.
The Tigers scored five straight goals at Co-op Place to beat the Moose Jaw Warriors 6-3 for a 14th straight win. Friday’s win came as forward Andrew Basha’s played in his first game with the Tigers this season after being reassigned by the Calgary Flames from the AHL’s Wranglers.
“It was fun to be part of,” Basha said. “It was good to see the good crowd and everything. It definitely felt weird, but as time keeps going on it’ll just keep getting better and better. It was a different pace, different play style, so I’ll have to get used to that a little bit.”
Basha, who scored Friday night, was reassigned by the Flames earlier in the day after playing 27 games in the AHL, tallying a goal and five points.
“It was good having him back,” head coach Willie Desjardins said. “It’s tough coming in, he hasn’t played with us for a little big and things are different, but he’s got a lot of good skills. He made a great play on his goal, he’s so explosive. He set some guys up, he could’ve had two or three points but it was just good to have him back.”
The 20-year-old forward played in 23 regular season games with the Tigers last season with nine goals and 29 points before an injury sidelined him through the second half of the year and three rounds of the playoffs. He returned for the WHL Finals, scoring in Game 1 against the Spokane Chiefs. He finished with two goals and five points across five games in the finals, helping the Tigers capture a sixth Ed Chynoweth Cup. He had an assist in four games at the Memorial Cup in Rimouski, Que.
He says his next few games will be about getting his muscle memory back at the junior level.
“Getting the reads and stuff, it’s a different pace, so anytime change levels – whether that’s up or down – it can be kind of tough to just fit right in right away. But I thought overall it was pretty decent and I just have to to keep building.”
The Tigers have four overage players as a result of the move by the Hitmen, Basha as well as defenceman Josh Van Mulligen and forwards Ethan Neutens and Misha Volotovskii. Van Mulligen was scratched Friday but is expected to play Saturday according to Desjardins. They have until the Jan. 8 trade deadline to move a 20-year-old to get back under the three-over ager limit.
The Tigers opened the scoring with a pair of goals within 38 seconds of one another.
Noah Davidson hammered home a cross-ice pass from Tyson Moss at the 9:00 mark to open the scoring. Liam Ruck had the second assist on Davidson’s 11th, extending Ruck’s point streak to 10 games.
“(Moss) is an underrated passer, so when he had it at the point and I was open, I kind of knew he was going to give it to me,” Davidson said.
Just 38 seconds later, Bryce Pickford caught a puck in the neutral zone before skating in and scoring his league-leading 28th of the season for the 2-0 lead after 20 minutes. The tally extends the Tiger captain’s point streak to 12 games.
Friday’s win was the third meeting between the Tigers and Moose Jaw, the first to not go into overtime. It was also the Tigers third win, with the fourth and final game of the season series coming Saturday.
“We were good early, I thought we were really good early, we kind of fell off a little bit towards the end,” Desjardins said. “But Switzer made some big saves or it could have been back to overtime again. They got some looks that we didn’t need to give them but we played hard early and we weren’t quite as good late.”
The Tigers outshot Moose Jaw 43-19 in the win. They rattled off another two goals within a minute of each other to start the second.
Liam Ruck was sprung on a breakaway by Niilopekka Muhonen and the younger of the twin duo roofed a forehand shot bardown to make it a 3-0 lead 4:11 into the middle frame. Riley Steen had the second assist on Ruck’s 19th of the year.
A little under a minute after Ruck found twine, Jonas Woo followed suit. The 19-year-old blue liner had the puck at the point near his bench before winding up to fake a slap shot. He deked around a pair of defenders before scoring with a shot from the top of the slot for his 19th of the year. Pickford and Stengrim had the assists as Woo extends his point streak to 12 games.
The Tigers scored shorthanded later in the frame.
Cam Parr poked a puck past a Moose Jaw defender at the point in the Tigers end before skating down and scoring on the breakaway for his second of the season and the 5-0 lead with 3:28 left in the second.
Moose Jaw got on the board before the period could end. Ethan Semeniuk jammed home a loose puck in the Tiger crease to make it a 5-1 game after 40 minutes.
Basha’s goal came 4:25 into the third, sprung from the neutral zone off a pass from fellow over ager Ethan Neutens. He broke in on goal and scored his first of the season, much to the delight of the 4,226 int attendance. Kyle Heger had the second assist on the goal.
“It’s good anytime you can contribute, probably going to try and shoot the puck more but overall it was pretty good,” Basha said.
The Warriors scored twice to round out the game. Landen McFadden scored on a power play at 12:55 and 37 seconds later, Brady Ness scored with a backhand in the slot for the 6-3 final score.
Starter Jordan Switzer made 16 saves for his 16th win of the season, tied for most in the WHL. Across the ice, starter Kyle Jones made 13 saves on 17 shots before being pulled for Dylan Mingo who finished with 24 saves on 26 shots.
The Tigers (26-6-3-2) head to Moose Jaw on Saturday looking to extend their 14-game win streak in the last game of the year against the Warriors.
“You just look at the next game, it really doesn’t matter, that win is gone now and so it’s onto the next one and you have to find a way to win,” Desjardins said. “We have to be better in Moose Jaw, I thought we fell off a little today, we didn’t have the intensity we had before. So we got to get it back.”
Puck drop Saturday is at 5 p.m. MST.
