PHOTO COURTESY Jason Kerr/Prince Albert Daily Herald
Medicine Hat Tigers goaltender Jordan Switzer slides across to stop a shot from Prince Albert Raiders forward Connor Howe during the Tigers' 5-1 loss at the Art Hauser Centre on Saturday.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
After winning all their games across a two-month stretch, the Medicine Hat Tigers are getting a refresher course on playing their best.
The Tigers came out of a two-game road trip through Saskatchewan with one point, picked up in a 3-2 shootout loss Friday to the Saskatoon Blades. They lost 5-1 Saturday to the East division-leading Prince Albert Raiders, who are also four points ahead of the Tigers for the Eastern conference lead.
It’s a pair of losses that sees them drop three of their last four games, started off with the 8-5 loss to Prince Albert on Jan. 17 which snapped that team-record win streak. Head coach Willie Desjardins says they’ve faced good teams and haven’t been playing bad, just not playing great.
“Whenever you get towards the end of a win streak you get sloppy, and we were getting to that point where you could tell the streak was going to come to an end just by how we were playing. But we have to regroup now and get focused,” Desjardins said. “It’s a wake-up call and you learn more from losing a lot of times than winning, so we just have to learn from those losses.”
After surrendering a pair of one-goal leads in Friday’s loss, the Tigers played from behind for 50 minutes Saturday, trailing 2-0 after 40 minutes before they got on the board in the third period with Liam Ruck’s 27th of the season. There’s a standard they want to play to every night, Desjardins says, and he hasn’t seen them at the level they need to be as of late. He says their pre-practice discussion Monday was about needing culture to play system hockey.
“You have to have culture to play systems because if your guys don’t want to play the systems, it doesn’t matter what systems you run. And right now, we have guys that are just not on top of what we do, and we have to dial it in,” Desjardins said. “We have to decide how important winning is. And when we decide that, we have to play that way.”
The Tigers are winners of seven of their last 10 and still lead the Central division, three points up on the Edmonton Oil Kings who have a game in hand. Their penalty kill is fifthbest in the WHL (80.5 per cent) and their power play is the second-best (31.3 per cent). Despite the losses as of late, there has been a lot of success this season and still a 22-game road ahead before playoffs begin. Defenceman Josh Van Mulligen says, they have a chance to reset here and get back to their game.
“It’s always good to deal kind of a bit of adversity, every group needs to do it,” Van Mulligen said. “But for us, I think it’s just keep on building and keep getting better for playoffs.”
After remaining relatively healthy throughout the middle part of the season, the Tigers have been hit by the injury bug again. Captain Bryce Pickford missed both games in Saskatchewan and forward Shaeffer Gordon-Carroll left midway through Saturday’s game and did not return.
Desjardins had no firm update on an injury timeline for either player and says they will both have to be evaluated further.
“He’s not just a great player for us, he’s also our leader, so we missed his presence in the room,” Van Mulligen said. “But I think that just means, guys like myself and other leaders, other older guys, it’s time to step up and we have to get some wins for him.”
Playing without the WHL’s goalscoring co-leader and the CHL’s top scoring defenceman is a blow for the Tigers, one the rest of the roster will have to try to absorb. They have the benefit of leaning on fellow 19-year-old blue liner Jonas Woo to carry the load on the backend.
“Woo had a heck of a game up in P.A., but we need everybody, it’s tough,” Desjardins said. “Woo must have played 30 minutes in that game. So that’s hard when you’re playing those kind of minutes. But he played great.”
The Tigers had defenceman Kayne Wright at practice on Monday. The recently turned 17-year-old has spent the season with the South Alberta Hockey Academy’s U18 team, tallying five goals and 17 points in 22 games.
Defenceman Niilopekka Muhonen was a late scratch for Saturday’s game, out with the flu, Desjardins said. He is 50-50 to play tonight, according to the Tiger bench boss.
The Tigers host the Blades tonight at Co-op Place for a rematch of Friday’s contest and the final meeting between the East division foe. They lead the season series 2-0-0-1 and look to get back in the win column for a second straight Tuesday.
“We just lost to Saskatoon on the weekend, so we get them back right away and we’re definitely looking forward to having a bit of a bounce-back effort,” Van Mulligen said.
