PHOTO COURTESY ED FONGER SWIFT CURRENT BRONCOS
Medicine Hat Tigers defenceman Veeti Väisänen battles with Dawson Girwing of the Swift Current Broncos in front of net minder Jordan Switzer in a 4-3 win Wednesday at Swift Current.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers are picking up wins in steady fashion in recent days.
The Tigers recorded a third-straight win Wednesday night, scoring four unanswered goals – three in the third – to win 4-3 at Swift Current over the Broncos. Liam Ruck recorded his first WHL multi-goal game, Oasiz Wiesblatt found twine and later assisted on Gavin McKenna’s game winner with 16.3 seconds left in the game.
“That’s a tough building to win in,” head coach Willie Desjardins said. “The boys went in and played hard. We’re still not where we need to be but overall, our group worked and our structure was better.”
McKenna assisted on Wiesblatt’s 12th, extending his point streak to 12 games and with his goal, furthering his scoring lead in the Canadian Hockey League with 19 goals and 57 points in 28 games. The 16-year-old has 34 points in his last 14 games and will be off for Hockey Canada’s World Juniors camp after this weekend.
The Tigers have won three in a row and have now picked up 15 of a possible 20 points in the past 10 games. It’s a stretch that has kept them in first place of the Central division, good for second in the Eastern conference. That stretch of 10 games saw four come-back wins, two one-goal losses and a split of two overtimes.
“We’ve got a resilient group, all the guys buy into our system,” Liam Ruck said. “We get up a few, we lock it down, that’s what we’ve been doing, and we’ve been winning games with it.”
Medicine Hat has navigated the second half of that stretch without 20-year-old goaltender Harrison Meneghin, who has missed the last five games due to a lower-body injury. His status has been updated to week to week on the WHL website; Desjardins says it’s getting close to him being out until after the Christmas break.
That would align Meneghin with Hayden Harsanyi’s return to the lineup. The 17-year-old forward is still tabbed as week to week with a lower-body injury, but he is back in Medicine Hat with the WHL club.
The Tigers were also without defenceman Bryce Pickford in Wednesday’s win due to a lower-body injury. It’s an absence Desjardins says stems from a bump in practice, and is marked as day to day. They could also see the return of Andrew Basha who skated with the full club Thursday.
Meneghin’s absence has allowed Jordan Switzer to take over, and the 17-year-old continues to give Medicine Hat a chance every night. He made 16 saves in the victory Wednesday, his eighth win on the year. Swift Current scored 41 seconds into the contest, a goal Switzer says he just had to shake off.
“I was feeling good to start that game, even though that goal goes I,” Switzer said. “You have to have that next shot mentality, where it doesn’t matter what just happened. You’re just trying to make the next one.”
He’s projected to start both games this weekend, heading to Lethbridge tonight to face the Hurricanes before hosting the Edmonton Oil Kings on Saturday at Co-op Place. Both contests are Teddy Bear Toss night’s for either club, with the Medicine Hat News Teddy Bear Toss on Saturday.
It’ll be a first Teddy Bear Toss game for a few Tigers rookies, presenting an opportunity to unleash the bears.
“I can’t wait to see the teddy bears fly, but we just have to treat it as another game,” Ruck said.
Switzer received new gear from Santa Claus this week, getting a set of white and orange pads and gloves. For this weekend, he’ll still with the blue gear he has from his time with the Northern Alberta Xtreme, giving him time to break-in the new pads. While wearing the blue pads, he hopes to play spoiler in Lethbridge.
“My goal is to not have Teddys being thrown in Lethbridge,” Switzer said. “It’s just a big mental game for me, just trying to make saves out there. It’s the same game that you always play.”
The Tigers remain without defenceman Matt Paranych who last played Nov. 22 and has been healthy scratched in four games since. The 17-year-old Edmonton product has played 20 games this season with three goals and six points.
Desjardins says Paranych is looking for more ice time and he is looking to play on another team.
“It’s tough, we’ve got a good defence, he’s playing good minutes but he’s a young guy who believes in himself and he wants to play more,” Desjardins said. “So we’ll have to look around and see if there’s an option for him someplace else.”
