2025 WHL Championship Game 5 Player To Watch: Bryce Pickford, Medicine Hat Tigers

Spokane, Wash.- In a postseason packed with breakout performances, no one has lit up the 2025 WHL Playoffs quite like Medicine Hat Tigers blueliner Bryce Pickford.

He already has a historic goal-scoring streak and a pair of game-deciding goals under his belt, but the two-way defender isn’t getting ahead of himself as he stares down a second WHL Championship in his young career.

“It’s the hardest game to finish off,” Pickford said. “Their backs (are) against the wall, we’ve just got to keep playing the way we’re playing and bringing it into Game 5.”

The Medicine Hat Tigers are on the cusp of lifting the Ed Chynoweth Cup for the first time since 2007 after taking a commanding 3-1 series lead with a 5-2 win in Game 2, featuring a two-goal, one-assist performance from Pickford.

The 19-year-old, who won a WHL Championship in his rookie season with the Seattle Thunderbirds, is in the midst of a masterful run in the 2025 WHL Playoffs.

Pickford has set a modern league record (1996-present) for goals in consecutive playoff games by a defenceman with nine lamp-lighters in seven-straight games.

He’s also on an eight-game point streak (9G-6A) and is tied with fellow rearguard Tanner Molendyk for the most points in the WHL Championship Series (six).

Pickford also picked up the game-winning goal in Games 1 and 4.

“Everything he shoots right now is just kind of going in,” Molendyk, a Nashville Predators prospect, said. “Credit goes out to him; that guy spends an outrageous amount of time at the rink. I’ve never seen someone spend so much time on themselves… I guess you guys can see, whatever it is- eight games in a row or seven games. Special player, special person.”

The 6-foot, 190-pound right-shot defenceman has piled up 12 goals and 11 assists for 23 points and a +22 rating in 17 games.

According to the Medicine Hat Tigers, Pickford’s dominant effort isn’t shocking.

“It’s not just this stretch. It’s been the whole year,” Tigers Head Coach Willie Desjardins said following Game 4. “If you look at it, he was leading the league in goals for defencemen, early in the year, for the first half, and then he got hurt. So it’s not surprising. He’s got a great shot, sees the ice well.”

He’s also been a critical part of a Tigers defensive corps that has all but shut down the league’s number one offence in the regular season.

Medicine Hat has held Spokane to just two goals in two games at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena.

Pickford is ranked 100th among all North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting in the agency’s final list ahead of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft.

“Not really looking at that,” Pickford admitted. “I just want to win this next game.”

It all comes down to Game 5 at 7:00 p.m. PST on Friday, May 16.

TSN will broadcast the match to fans in Canada, while viewers in the United States and around the world can stream the 2025 WHL Championship Series presented by Nutrien on Victory+.