Tigers take down Blades
The Medicine Hat Tigers showed no mercy to the Saskatoon Blades on Friday at the SaskTel Centre.
Max Gerlach scored twice and added two helpers while linemate Mark Rassell connected for a pair of his own to lead Medicine Hat to a 6-2 victory over the Blades and a 2-1-0-0 start to their Western Hockey League season.
“Getting off to a hot start really helped us,” said Gerlach. “We just told the room to keep the pedal down.”
After being stymied on several chances and eventually settling for an empty netter in last weekend’s 4-0 win over the Lethbridge Hurricanes, Gerlach hit his stride in Saskatoon — finding the back of the net twice in the first seven minutes of the game before helping his team pile on in the second.
“It was good for my confidence. It was a tough game last Saturday, shooting-wise. I know I put a couple high and wide and I just wasn’t connecting on a couple high-end scoring chances,” said Gerlach. “It felt really good to touch the puck again and have a couple go in.”
Rassell kept the scoring parade rolling early in the middle frame by redirecting a pass from David Quenneville behind Blades goaltender Ryan Kubic, then rookie defenceman Cole Clayton joined the party one minute later with the first goal of his WHL career. The 17year-old Strathmore product stepped into a slap shot and watched it take a fortuitous bounce of Saskatoon’s Arjun Atwal and into the net, sending Clayton and his teammates into an uproarious celebration.
“The bench erupted when Cowboy (Clayton) got his,” said Rassell. “I was really excited and happy for him because he’s a hard worker and he earned it.”
The offence continued to flow into the second half of the period when Ryan Jevne put another puck past Kubic. The goal chased Kubic from the crease in favour of Joel Gryzbowski, but the Tigers quickly got to him too.
While Gryzbowski started his WHL debut with a pair of saves, Rassell tucked one past him on a late breakaway — off a stretch pass from Gerlach — to give Medicine Hat a staggering 6-0 lead at the break.
“It was a great pass and great vision from him. I’m really happy to be playing with him again this season,” said Rassell of Gerlach. “That intermission was huge for us. We really had to get back to what we do best and it really worked for us.”
The Blades brought better effort to the ice in the third period and managed to cut the deficit down to four on backto-back goals from Chase Wouters and Gage Ramsay. But any momentum gained was quickly snuffed out by a wellused timeout, allowing the Tabbies to regain their bearings and close out the victory
Tigers goaltender Michael Bullion collected the 21-save win, while Kubic took the loss after allowing five goals on 16 shots and Gryzbowski stopped 15 in relief.
Friday also featured the debut of new Tigers forward Jaeger White, stepson of head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston. The 19-year-old Medicine Hat product assisted on Gerlach’s opening goal after joining the team on Wednesday afternoon.
“With so much turnover and so much transition this year we thought it was a good idea to give him an opportunity,” said Clouston, adding White tried out with the Moose Jaw Warriors before earning a place with the Tigers. “From what we heard he had a real good try out with Moose Jaw, it was close there and he played really well against us … He’s an experienced guy. He played in the league at 16, but 17 was a real tough year. He ended up with a bad injury that mostly kept him out all last year.”
The Tigers close out their two-game road trip Saturday at 7 p.m. against the Prince Albert Raiders.