NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers forward Yaroslav Bryzgalov celebrates after scoring in the first period of an 8-3 win Saturday at Co-op Place over the Calgary Hitmen.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers capped off a divisional week with a pair of wins.
After beating the Edmonton Oil Kings 10-6 Wednesday, the club downed the Calgary Hitmen on back-to-back nights with a 3-2 overtime win Friday and an 8-3 win Saturday at home. They come out of the weekend with a six-game win streak ahead of a busy week.
“Those are three real big games, first starting with Edmonton, two with Calgary, the two teams who are right behind us. (To) find a way to get all three wins, it’s huge,” head coach Willie Desjardins said.
Friday night saw the Tigers come back and score late in the third to tie the game at 2-2 before captain Bryce Pickford scored in overtime for his league-leading 11th game winner and his 150th WHL point. Noah Davidson and Josh Van Mulligen each scored, Carter Casey made 18 saves.
On Saturday, the Tigers scored eight straight with seven different skaters. Luke Cozens had a pair, Andrew Basha had a goal and three assists and Yaroslav Bryzgalov had a goal and an assist. That line of Basha, Cozens and Bryzgalov combined for four goals and eight points in the win.
Basha says they wanted to bounce back as a line from Friday’s game.
“It’s good to have a bigger night tonight,” Basha said. “Any time you can have a good solid night as a line, it’s really important for the team and a great way to finish off the week.”
Jordan Switzer finished with 21 saves, tying him for the league lead with 26 wins. Saturday’s victory was his 50th in the WHL and has him 10th all time on the Tigers win list.
Defenceman Jonas Woo finished up his three-game suspension, allowing a return for a four-game week with a pair of road games, the first coming tonight in Regina.
For both games over the weekend the Tigers continued using forwards Dayton Reschny and Gavin Kor on the blue line, filling in for Woo and the injured Niilopekka Muhonen and Veeti Väisänen. Desjardins says the pair skate as defencemen in practice and he didn’t want to sit them for someone who hasn’t been around the team all year.
“It’s hard for them to sit in the stands and bring somebody else in when they’ve worked for us every day,” Desjardins said. “We just thought we’ll try to go with them back there and they’ve been great.
“They just deserve it. Like, how do you bring somebody else in and leave those guys out when they come to every practice? They play defence in practice, so might as well go that way.”
After playing in Regina, the Tigers face the Brandon Wheat Kings on Wednesday. They’ll host the Red Deer Rebels on Friday and then head to Edmonton to face a rested Oil Kings team Saturday. Desjardins says they have to take the week one day at a time.
“Both those teams are playing well, we’ll have to be ready for them,” Desjardins said. “It’s hard, whenever you go on the road, it’s going to be tough. With the travel and then we get back and we have Red Deer and then are in Edmonton, our schedule has been hard.”
