DESJARDINS WINS 400TH GAME AS TIGERS HEAD COACH IN WIN OVER MOOSE JAW
Medicine Hat, AB – History was made in the Medicine Hat Tigers 6-3 win over the Moose Jaw Warriors Saturday Night.
Tigers Head Coach & General Manager Willie Desjardins won his 400th game in his time with Medicine Hat but it didn’t come easy despite the score. Moose Jaw came out flying outshooting the Tigers outshot the Tigers 8-2 at one point but starter Beckett Langkow (Vegreville, AB) was brilliant turning aside every shot he faced in the 1st period. The Tigers would get a break thanks to a Shane Smith (Cessford, AB) shot to make it 1-0 Tigers at 10:18 from Josh Van Mulligan (Medicine Hat, AB) & Owen MacNeil (Calgary, AB).
The Tigers continued their scoring touch just minutes later at 12:31 as Brenden Lee (Seattle, WA) would score his 12th power play goal of the year 17th of the season to make 2-0 from Dru Krebs (Okotoks, AB) & Bogdans Hodass (Jelgava, LAT). 1:08 seconds later, Medicine Hat was at it again as Pasha Bocharov (Escondido, CA) would notch his 6th of the year on a mad scramble in front of the Moose Jaw net thanks to Oasiz Wiesblatt (Calgary, AB) & Andrew Basha (Calgary, AB). Tigers would a 3-0 lead into the 1st intermission.
In the middle frame the Tigers would increase their lead to 4-0 as Brayden Boehm (Nanaimo, BC) would break in for his 12th of the season from Krebs & Tyler MacKenzie (Red Deer, AB) at 4:35. Moose Jaw would finally solve Langkow with just four seconds left in the 2nd on a power play as Atley Calvert would get his 16th of the year making it 4-1 Tigers heading to the third.
The Tigers would keep things out of reach for the Warriors as Brenden Lee would win a battle behind the Warriors net and walk out and snipe his second of the game at 18th of the year just 26 seconds into the final stanza.
Moose Jaw wouldn’t go away though as Jagger Firkus would score the Warriors’ second power play goal of the night at 5:58 to make it 5-2 and then began a sequence of exchanging goals between the Tigers and Warriors as Tomas Mrsic (Surrey, BC) would redirect a Rhett Parsons (Cremona, AB) shot to give Medicine Hat’s final goal of the night while Brayden Yager would finish the scoring for Moose Jaw sneaking one past Beckett Langkow at 18:26.
Shots were even at 28-28 while the Tigers were 1/3 on the power play while Moose was 2/3 and Beckett Langkow made 25 saves for his 11th win of the season. Medicine Hat ends their four game week with a 2-2 record and will be back on the road to the East Division as they battle Saskatoon for the final time this season Tuesday night at SaskTel Centre before battling the Prince Albert Raiders on Wednesday.
You can catch the game on the Home of the Tigers WILD 94.5 with Gino De Paoli starting with the pre-game show at 5:45 and puck drop is set for 6 PM.
