Medicine Hat returns to elite status after
one rebuild year
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| Zach Fischer celebrates scoring a goal for the Tigers. |
It didn’t take the Medicine Hat Tigers long to start looking
like themselves again, which means they alone are worth the price of admission
on any of their Western Hockey League game nights.
Last year, the Tigers saw their run of making the WHL
playoffs for 13 consecutive years come to an end. Posting a 30-37-3-2 record in
the regular season, the Tigers faced the Edmonton Oil Kings in a standings
tiebreaking game for the final playoff berth in the WHL’s Eastern Conference
and came away on the wrong end of a 6-4 final.
After just over a third into the current campaign, the
Tigers are back to their high speed and high skill form.
On Saturday night at the SaskTel Centre, the orange and
black systematically dismantled the host Saskatoon Blades 8-2 before 3,802 stunned
spectators. The win was Medicine Hat’s ninth straight victory and has vaulted
the Tigers to the top of the overall WHL standings with a 20-5-1 mark.
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| Max Gerlach snipes his hat trick goal for the Tigers. |
Veteran Tigers head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston
has no complaints about where his team is at.
“It has been great,” said Clouston. “I think our older guys,
our leaders are doing a terrific job of making sure the room is ready every
night.
“We’ve got lots of guys contributing. We’ve had some guys
really step up and have breakout years. (Mark) Rassell and (Zach) Fischer are
good players and they just really had breakout seasons.
“James Hamblin who was 16-years-old last year, he has taken
big strides. We are getting contributions from our imports. I think those two
additions with (Kristians) Rubins and (John) Dahlstrom really helped us.”
The only big down parts the Tigers faced against Saskatoon came
from the fact Blades left-winger Braylon Shmyr opened the game’s scoring at the
1:56 mark of the first period, and he added a second marker with 53.8 seconds
to play in the opening frame to ensure both sides entered the first intermission
locked in a 2-2 tie.
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| Chad Butcher circles in the offensive zone for the Tigers. |
Fischer and offensive defenceman David Quenneville netted
the Tigers first period tallies. The visitors blew the roof off the building in
the second frame. Overage centre Chad Butcher scored 17 seconds into the middle
stanza and right-winger Max Gerlach netted a hat trick, which included two
tallies on impressive snipes, to put the Tigers up 6-2.
Flodell was chased after the Tigers fourth goal at the 2:27
mark of the second turning away 17-of-21 shots sent his way. Hamm stopped
18-of-22 shots sent his direction as the Blade dropped to 10-16-1.
In the third, Butcher collected his second goal of the night
and Dahlstrom added a single to round out the blowout score. Netminder Nick
Schneider turned away 22 shots to pick up the win in Medicine Hat’s goal.
The Tigers effort was businesslike. After each goal, the
players took part in a small celebration and calmly skated into position for
the next faceoff.
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| David Quenneville rushes into the offensive zone for the Tigers. |
“They were bound to fly open for a time being there, and
they did. Honestly, we could have had five or six more, which is really
exciting. It shows that when a game is pretty out of hand like it was tonight,
that we don’t stop. That is real important for our group.”
Clouston said one of the big keys this season was the fact
his club stuck with a younger group of inexperienced defencemen last season.
The Tigers usually like to keep a core of four to five blue-liners together
over a three-year period to create a base and chemistry at that position.
Medicine Hat’s back end has always been key in helping the
Tigers quickly transitioning up ice with a quick first pass on to the tape of
the stick of a forward striding at full speed. Clouston didn’t want to waive from
his team’s style.
“We knew that there was a certain way that we like to play,”
said Clouston. “We could have changed our style a little bit (last season).
“It might have helped us for the short term. We kept playing
the same way and practicing the same way.
“When we finally got through all our injuries and got
healthy, it was starting to pay dividends towards the end of the season, and I
think that is continuing this year.”
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| Goaltender Nick Schneider passes a puck up the boards for the Tigers. |
“Last year, he struggled at the start of the year,” said
Clouston. “It was his first opportunity to be the number one guy. It was a
major challenge for him.
“The way things worked out by the end of the year he was
that number one guy again. Austin Lotz was with us for a short time, but had a
season ending injury. By the end of the season, Schneids had kind of battled
through his adversity and grew a lot from that experience, and that has carried
over to this year.”
Quenneville, who is in his third full season with the
Tabbies, said it was important for his side to carry on and duplicate the team’s
storied successes of the past. He believes his Tigers are getting back to that
spot.
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| Captain Clayton Kirichenko gets set to drive a shot on goal for the Tigers. |
“We have worked real hard. We’ve developed a lot in the last
year, and we’re just continuing to get better, and that is the key for our
group.”
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