jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers fell short of their own expectations this season and head into a summer far too long for their liking.
A week removed from their Game 5 loss to the Red Deer Rebels, falling 4-1 in their first-round series, and the lockers are all empty at Co-op Place. Exit meetings with players have been completed and expectations have been set for their five-month summer ahead.
Looking back at their first-round series, head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins says they didn’t get overwhelmed in the series but says Red Deer found the big goal when they needed it. Two of the Rebels’ victories came in overtime and their Game 4 win was scored with 0.9 seconds left on the clock.
Desjardins says looking at the numbers from InStat Hockey, an independent company that evaluates all WHL games and provides statistics like expected goals for and against, the Tigers could have and should have won four of the five games.
Seeing those numbers after shaking hands with the Rebels following their series loss, Desjardins says that’s just how sports works.
“Not taking anything from Red Deer, they deserve the series. We had a lot of adversity, we went into that series missing forwards,” Desjardins said. “Game 3 we’re without Lindstrom, (Brayden) Boehm, (Vasyl) Spilka and (Marcus) Pacheco. Anybody loses four forwards and you’re going to have trouble. (Nate) Corbet ended up playing forward for the whole second half, so our young guys played great.”
Desjardins says Game 3 hurt them in the series. With Lindstrom out of the lineup, Gavin McKenna played 29 minutes in the game and Basha played close to 26.
“They just didn’t have any legs the next night and that’s just what we had to do,” Desjardins said. “You win that game and that’s awesome. You have to play the game to win because you know that it’s too tight. So the group was good, we played hard. We could have worked more but that’s playoffs sometimes.”
With nothing left to look at but next season, Desjardins says the message to the group remains the same as it ever is when they find themselves watching more playoff hockey than they play.
“I’ve always stayed focused on finding a way to win, I’m always pretty focused on (players) have to have a huge summer if you want to give yourself a chance,” Desjardins said. “It’s the one time that you have a chance to make a big jump.”
He says the jumps that forwards Cayden Lindstrom and Andrew Basha made last summer are examples of how the offseason can be used to find that next level.
“If we have guys who take those kinds of strides, it’s going to be great for us” Desjardins said. “Other guys don’t take strides in the summer, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the fall where everybody is at.”
The next step for the Tigers is the U.S. draft and the prospects draft May 8 and 9. They’ll have rookie camp in the summer before training camp breaks in early September.
The returning group is relatively the same as this year’s team, only missing their three overage defencemen Dru Krebs, Rhett Parsons and Bogdans Hodass. They’ll return with 13 forwards, five defencemen and two goalies. There’s a handful of prospects looking to make the jump led by forwards Markus and Liam Ruck, defencemen Riley Steen and Koray Bozkaya and goaltender Jordan Switzer.
With that number of players looking for their ice time, and championship expectations now hanging over a team that hasn’t won a playoff series since the 2016-17 season, Desjardins says there’s no guaranteed spots and they’ll see what comes along in regards to trades to make the group better.
“It’s easy to go from 50 to 70 (in school), just put in a little bit of time and your marks go up pretty quick, it’s harder to go from 70 to 90,” Desjardins said. “Now we’re at a stage where it’s hard to get better. We have lots of guys and improvements are going to be hard, so there will be a lot of tough decisions.”
Wearing both hats as a general manager and a head coach, Desjardins says he has to look at the game in two ways. As GM, he knew it would have been difficult to win a championship this season. As head coach, the only option is the ultimate prize. The good news is, the man under the GM hat sees a bright future with this group.
“I think we’re built so that next year is a good year for us,” Desjardins said. “We’ll have to make a few moves maybe to get the right pieces but I think we should have a pretty strong group next year.”
While he’s excited for the future and the talent they will have next season, Desjardins is equally encouraged for Tigers fans to see a team that resembles the amount of passion brought to Co-op Place as this season played on.
“I really appreciate the fans, they did a really great job in the playoffs, that was the first time where they’re out and they’re loud and excited and it’s too bad we weren’t able to go farther because there was good momentum and we couldn’t keep it going,” Desjardins said. “Saying that, I think next year is going to be exciting and it’s an exciting town to be part of.”
