Tigers overcome short bench -
Tigers upend Oil Kings with seven players missing from lineup
The Medicine Hat Tigers were juggling lines like a game of shinny Saturday night at the Canalta Centre, but even with seven regulars missing from the lineup they were still able to send the Edmonton Oil Kings home empty-handed in a 7-4 barnburner.
The Tigers were without defencemen David Quenneville and Ty Schultz, both of whom are recovering from broken legs, while Jordan Henderson and John Dahlstrom have confirmed cases of the mumps and teammates Zach Fischer, Ryan Chyzowski and now Kristians Rubins are undergoing testing and quarantining procedures. Tigers assistant coach Joe Frazer is also dealing with the sickness, but it opened the door for a good amount of on-ice experimentation, and ended up with points from 10 different skaters.
“Going with 10 forwards is tough because you don’t want one guy sitting on the bench while we’re rolling with three (lines). I think what we were trying to do is just have two guys go with (affiliate Josh Williams) every once in a while,” said Rassell. “They split up (Max) Gerlach, Jimmy (Hamblin) and I at the beginning of the game which I thought was absolutely insane. I can’t believe that happened. But (Ryan) Jevne played really well with us, Willy played really well. We had a great team effort tonight.”
Chad Butcher, Matt Bradley and Rassell all scored in the final three minutes of the second period to break a tie game wide open before skating away to victory on a night that featured contributions from every active player at Medicine Hat’s disposal.
“Butcher’s shorty was definitely the catalyst there,” said Rassell. “That’s huge at the end of a period. To go into the third with a three-goal lead really gives you confidence for that last 20 minutes.”
It was the second time Bradley and Rassell connected in succession that evening, as the pair opened the scoring early in the first period before Edmonton’s Trey Fix-Wolansky mustered a response.
The 17-year-old forward closed out the opening period with his 18th goal of the season before adding another to open up the second — but the Tigers managed to regain the upper hand with a wild conclusion to the frame.
Butcher netted his first shorthanded goal of the year, then Bradley hopped out of the box and added another before Rassell mashed a loose puck through the legs of Oil Kings goaltender Josh Dechaine to bury Edmonton in a threegoal deficit.
“I think we had control of the game for the whole game. We were really confident,” said Bradley. “We were playing as a five-man unit and things were going well out there.”
Medicine Hat continued the offensive onslaught to open the third, with Hamblin tipping a Mason Shaw one-timer past Dechaine on their first power play chance of the evening. Hamblin and Rassell finished the night with three points apiece.
Fix-Wolansky completed the hat trick to crack the 20-goal plateau after Hamblin’s marker, before Gerlach and Oil Kings winger Davis Koch traded markers to close out the third.
Tigers goaltender Nick Schneider collected his third straight win, though he was pulled in favour of Michael Bullion after allowing a third goal on 17 shots. Bullion stopped five of six in relief to help push the Tigers to 42-17-10 on the year.
“I was just nervous,” said Tigers head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston, on his decision to change goaltenders. “Nick’s a great goaltender but he’s not on top of his game right now. We’re going to keep giving him chances, we’ve got lots of time — we’ve got over a month. I just felt that we needed a save there.”
Dechaine turned aside 41 pucks in a losing effort, dropping the Oil Kings to 20-34-4-1.
Tigers prospect Josh Williams made his home ice debut Saturday. While the 15year-old Langley, B.C. product — selected fifth overall in the 2016 WHL bantam draft — was held off the scoresheet, he worked his way into a number of scoring chances and spent time with the team’s overage line alongside Butcher and Steven Owre.
There was plenty of line juggling going around. Rookie forward Gary Haden was even tasked to try out his hand at defence for the night. While it’s not his area of expertise, he says it gave him a new perspective on the back end.
“I definitely have a lot more respect for the defencemen. I always give them a hard time saying D is easy, but it’s something else when someone else is bearing down on you with the puck. It’s quite frightening actually,” said Haden. “I’ve never really ever played defence and I’ve always been criticized for not playing enough defence so it was something else to be put back there. I just kept it simple.”
The Tigers return to the Canalta Centre on Tuesday to host the Moose Jaw Warriors (34-17-7-1) at 7 p.m.