Tigers hope to keep momentum from head-to-head wins

Call them meaningless games, but the Medicine Hat Tigers are still proud of their home-and-home sweep of the Lethbridge Hurricanes to close out the regular season.

After dropping eight consecutive games inside the walls of the Enmax Centre, the Tigers closed out the regular season with a resounding 5-1 win over the ’Canes — snapping a slump that started in 2014 just in time for the first playoff meeting between the teams since 1991.

While the games had no influence on the final standings, Tigers head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston says that didn’t impact their importance in the dressing room.

“It was probably important, just to believe that we could do it,” said Clouston. “Sometimes there are some mental blocks that come into play so hopefully after that game we know that we can have success there if we play to the best of our abilities.”

For overage forward Steven Owre — who will finally get the chance to expand on the Highway 3 rivalry in the playoffs after spending five years with the Tabbies — ending the frustrating slide in the Windy City was the perfect way to close out their historic 51-win regular season.

“I think that was huge,” he said. “Going into that building their fans are loud and they always come out with a little bit of extra incentive against us. So it was great to get a win in Lethbridge for the first time in a while.”

“It seemed like every time we went to that building, it was just tough for us. They came out flying every time and we really struggled,” added defenceman Ty Schultz. “It was really good to see us win that last game in there.”

This year’s season series between Lethbridge and Medicine Hat fluctuated between defensively wrought battles and fullblown barnburners. But Owre says they don’t plan on straying into end-to-end play with so much on the line.

“I think we can score, but I don’t think anyone ever really wants to get into that shootout type of game,” said Owre. “We really want to make sure that we’re tightening up. They’ve got forwards who can score too so we need to tighten up on those guys and take away their time and space.”

Those forwards include the likes of Tyler Wong, Giorgio Estephan and Egor Babenko — who combined for 28 points in their seven-game series victory over the Red Deer Rebels. But much like Medicine Hat, the Hurricanes showcased some serious depth in the first round. While 10 Tigers hit the back of the net across four games against the Wheaties, the Hurricanes had 13 goal-scorers in seven contests. It’s something Hurricanes head coach Brent Kisio says will need to continue in order to find success against a team like the Tigers.

“They’re a team that gets production from everyone. When you’re facing a team like that, you’re going to have to kind of match that as well,” said Kisio. “We know how big of a challenge this is, especially going into Medicine Hat. We respect and know how good they are. It’s going to be hard.”

While the Hurricanes were fighting for the right to play in the second round, Medicine Hat has been battling to stay on top of their game with eight full days off between series.

Kisio said it was a stressful endeavor to battle all the way back from the brink against the Rebels, but it’s one that should provide the Hurricanes with a stiff boost of confidence — especially considering it was the first time they’ve done it in franchise history.

“It’s always a hard spot when you’re down 3-1. If you look at the series, we led for most of it. I think going into Game 6 we had only not led for 10 minutes and yet we found ourselves down 3-2 in the series, so that was a tough spot to be in,” said Kisio. “Red Deer played hard and played well, but I’ve got to give our guys credit for sticking with it, believing in our game and what we have to do and finding a way.”

The Tigers will ride the hot hand of Michael Bullion into the series. The 19year-old Alaskan netminder has put together a storybook season after being traded to Medicine Hat with the original purpose of serving a backup role. In the three months since, Bullion has improved every area on his stats sheet, including the first three shutouts of his career — one of which came against Lethbridge. But Bullion says the past doesn’t matter, he’s strictly focused on the future.

“It was really good to see us win that last game in there.”

– Ty Schultz

“It definitely is a confidence boost but this is a totally different level of hockey,” said Bullion. “Any team can score on any given day so it’s up to us and our coaches, how we’re going to play. We have to decide our effort level and that’s, I think, the biggest thing. It’s great to have that confidence but at the same time it’s our effort and how we play and how we choose to play that’s going to be the difference.”

While Bullion is fairly new to the Highway 3 rivalry, he says he got enough of a taste to know fans are in store for a wild series.

“It’s definitely a reminder of like a Portland-Seattle series. It’s crazy, the fans go nuts for it. It’s cool when you get two different fan cheering sections in there. It’s just a blast, I love it,” said Bullion, adding fan involvement could be a big factor in the series. “They’ve been getting louder and louder all year and as you can see our play as just continually picked up.”

Clouston added nothing is set in stone, but given a completely healthy lineup Medicine Hat’s roster should be the same as it was for their Game 4 victory over Brandon.

“We’ve got three defencemen who all have some minor aches and pains so we’ll kind of see exactly where it is at the morning skate,” said Clouston. “If everybody is kind of in the same spot then I think we would probably go ahead and start where we ended off.”