NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Jordan Switzer sticks his elbow up to make a save in the first period of an 8-5 loss Saturday at Co-op Place to the Prince Albert Raiders. The loss snaps the Tigers' 19-game win streak.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat Tigers were oh so close to pushing their win streak to the 20-game mark.
After a 7-3 win Friday over the Edmonton Oil Kings, their 2,000th regular season win as a franchise, the Tigers faced the East division-leading Prince Albert Raiders on Saturday.
A pair of goals from Liam Ruck (shorthanded, 25th) and Jonas Woo (23rd) had them two goals back of Prince Albert heading into the third. Kade Stengrim (11th) and Markus Ruck (11th) scored in the third to tie the game, putting the Tigers in a spot to grab their first lead of the night.
Prince Albert grabbed another lead but the Tigers responded again, Luke Cozens (19th) scoring his second as a Tiger to tie the game up again. They were again one goal away from that lead.
However, before they could nab it, Prince Albert scored with 2:34 left for a 6-5 lead, with two empty netters icing the game and win streak, snapping it at 19 games.
After the pair of wins against Edmonton and the loss Saturday, head coach Willie Desjardins stood quiet but proud of his team.
“The guys played hard, lots of hard hockey in there, we did a great job against Edmonton, finding ways to win those two games,” Desjardins said. “We had a few guys out, Prince Albert was pretty healthy, they have a really good hockey team. They knew it was going to be a tough game.
“Our guys showed a lot of character coming back in the third, even when they scored, we came back again. So I like my room, those guys play hard, it’s a good group.”
They were missing forwards Ethan Neutens and Yaroslav Bryzgalov, each serving the final games of respective suspensions. Defenceman Veeti Väisänen missed a third game due to an upper-body injury.
The Tigers pushed back against a Raiders team which entered Saturday with a 25-1-1 record when leading after two periods. They come out of the weekend still one point up on Prince Albert for the Eastern conference lead, two points up on the Oil Kings.
Saturday’s loss was the Tigers’ first defeat since Nov. 21, a 4-3 shootout loss at Red Deer to the Rebels. It was their first regulation loss since a 7-4 defeat at the hands of the Brandon Wheat Kings on Nov. 8. Desjardins says it’s easy to move on from the streak because it’s over.
“It’s gone, like that’s done, the next game is the only one that counts. Calgary has a good team. They’re quick, they’re going to play hard and we’ll have to rebound.”
The Tigers host the Calgary Hitmen tonight, their first games against the Central division foe since Nov. 22 and 23, a home-and-home series the Tigers won in a shootout and overtime.
Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll had three assists in the loss Saturday, he expects the Tigers to respond well.
“The best thing about life is it comes right back at you,” Gordon-Carroll said. “So you have another chance, another opportunity. But this one is a learning curve for us. But our group, we have no doubt in us. So we’ll be able to come back from this one.”
2,000 wins
Before Saturday’s loss, Friday’s win over Edmonton was filled with franchise highlights.
Captain Bryce Pickford scored his 33rd of the season, setting a new team record for goals in a single season by a defenceman, passing Kris Russell’s mark of 32 in 2006-07.
The win was the Tigers’ 2,000th victory regular season win in their 56th season.
Desjardins, behind the bench for 554 of them, beamed talking about the franchise’s milestone.
“To get 2,000 wins means a lot of really good people have been here. You look at the back-to-back (Memorial Cups), even look back to the franchise’s third year when they won the championship, right from the start they proved they were going to be a good franchise,” Desjardins said. “It says a lot about the Masers. George started it and I know the boys are certainly proud to keep that tradition, but it’s a pretty special tradition when you have one owner for all these years.
“It’s hard to win if you don’t have the support from the top and they’ve always been great to us. They always have been behind their team and we’ve been fortunate that way. So 2,000 wins is really special. I think every guy that’s wore the jersey can feel part of it.”
