Tigers pair on streaks
The floodgates are finally opening up for James Hamblin and Tyler Preziuso.
The pair of 19-year-old Medicine Hat Tigers forwards are riding impressive point streaks into this weekend’s home-and-home set against the Calgary Hitmen, with Preziuso stringing together 12 points over the past seven games and Hamblin adding 11 through the past six.
On Thursday, they took a moment to reflect on just how far they’ve come.
“We were joking around today about our 16-year-old year,” said Preziuso. “We were talking about how I think I had three goals and he had two or something that entire year, and now we’re just on hot streaks. It’s crazy to think.
“Me and James joke about it quite a bit, but at the end of the day it’s just helping the team win and that’s all we want.”
Hamblin says the power play has been a big part of their recent scoring surge. Medicine Hat’s man advantage has been generating more scoring chances of late — highlighted by a 3-for-4 performance in last Friday’s 8-5 victory over the Pats in Regina — and Hamblin says that special teams success seems to be spilling over into even strength situations.
“It’s come a long way and that’s really helped,” said Hamblin. “We’re getting a lot of scoring, just kind of putting pucks to the net and things are going in right now.”
The Tiger captain has been leading the offence in almost every area since the season started — collecting seven of his 19 points on the power play and two more on the penalty kill. While Hamblin was held without a point for a five-game span in early October, he responded by starting up his six-game point streak while carrying the Tigers to a 4-1-0-1 record in the span and to 8-6-0-2 on the season.
“He’s definitely one of the hardest workers I know, on and off the ice,” Preziuso said of Hamblin. “He’s the first guy to get to the rink and one of the last to leave every day, so it’s nice to see that working out.”
Preziuso has been reaping the benefits of prolonged chemistry on a line with Ryan Jevne and Ryan Chyzowski. The trio has been together for more than two complete seasons, rising through the ranks from an energy-based fourth line to a primary offensive option with 30 combined points in the past seven games.
“He’s definitely one of the hardest workers I know, on and off the ice.”
– Tyler Preziuso, talking about James Hamblin
“Every single year they seem to get a little bit better,” said Hamblin. “They have a lot of good chemistry together. They’ve been shutting teams down lately and also they’ve also been able to find the back of the net.”
The weekend’s two-game set will be the first time the Tigers and Hitmen cross paths this season. While Calgary has struggled to a 4-9-2-0 record in the early going, Hamblin says the Tigers won’t be reading too much into the past.
“We know they’re going to come hard,” he said. “They’ve had a lot of games that could have gone either way, so you really can’t take their record for anything. We’re going to come hard at them and it’s going to be a good game.”
The Tigers will return to the Canalta Centre to host the Hitmen in a rematch Sunday at 6 p.m.