Ice claim regular-season crown

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This article was published 11/04/2022 (1507 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Ice cruised to its 51st win of the season — an 8-2 decision over the visiting Medicine Hat Tigers — and an overall regular-season WHL title Sunday night.

A muted celebration followed the best regular-season finish in franchise history with 107 points and there are still two games left to play.

“It’s pretty impressive,” said Ice forward Mikey Milne, who had a career-high five points including his 36th goal of 2022-23. “I think at the beginning of the year if you were to tell me that, I think we knew we had the group to do it. Now that we’ve accomplished it, it’s pretty special.

“But now the real work begins, right? We have we have home-ice advantage throughout but that doesn’t really matter unless you play good hockey.”

Winnipeg rolled out to a 3-0 lead early in the second period before the Tigers scored twice to make it a one-goal game. From there, the hosts took command with their overwhelming speed and depth.

“We we did a better job of just getting in foot races, making it tougher on their D and either chipping pucks behind them or taking it wide,” said head coach James Patrick. “And you just notice Mikey, he does those things consistently. He gets a breakaway a game and he makes it tough on the defence.”

The Ice are now 51-10-3-2.

Ben Zloty with his seventh and eighth goals, Conor Geekie with his 23rd, Connor McClennon with his 41st and 42nd, and Matt Savoie with his 33rd and 34th, also scored for the Ice.

“Tonight was a game that kind of epitomize the way this season has (gone) — we’ve just been blessed with a lot of depth and a lot of supportive guys when I think there are times when we have three lines that could be a No. 1 line on a lot of teams,” added Patrick.

”And yet no one complains about ice time, no one complains about who starts the game or who gets the first power play as a group. They’ve been incredibly encouraging and supportive of each other and at same time they push each other.”

Overage defenceman Nolan Orzeck also had a career night, registering five assists.

“We have bigger goals in mind,” said Orzeck, who could not recall a bigger offensive output in his life. “We want to win the league and then move on to the Memorial Cup. So the guys are happy we clinched that but we have bigger goals.”

“Nolan’s presence has always felt with his mobility and is defending and getting the puck out of our zone,” said Patrick.

Winnipeg will complete its regular season with a pair of home games against the Regina Pats on Thursday and Friday.

Tyler MacKenzie, with his fourth, Noah Danielson, with his 11th, replied with goals for the Tigers, who lost their 11th consecutive game.

Winnipeg’s Daniel Hauser stopped 24 shots to improve to an incredible 32-3-1-0 overall with a 1.97 goals-against average and a .915 save percentage.

Hauser was backed up by rookie Noah Stenvig, who has taken veteran Gage Alexander’s spot on the active roster. Alexander is listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

The 19-year-old hasn’t played since March 5. Patrick admitted he would like to have Alexander is playing shape by the time the post-season starts later this month.

”I’m not going to rule out anything,” said Patrick. “We’ll see. We’re taking tomorrow off and he’ll be on the ice Tuesday and we’ll just take it day-by-day as far as how he progresses.”

Medicine Hat goaltender Beckett Langkow stopped 24 shots.

Medicine Hat is 12th and last in the Eastern Conference with an 11-52-3-1 record.

BLUE-LINES: Winnipeg was 0-for-4 on the power play. Medicine Hat was 0-for-6… Three stars: 1. Nolan Orzeck, Winnipeg (five assists); 2. Mikey Milne, Winnipeg (one goal, four assists); 3. Matt Savoie, Winnipeg (two goals).

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14