With an eight-point lead atop the Western Hockey League’s (WHL) scoring race, Trevor Cox is the frontrunner to win the Bob Clarke Trophy.
Not that the 19-year-old Surrey native is too concerned about it.
With 23 goals and a league-best 71 assists in 57 games played, Cox cares more about the team standings than individual accomplishments, and insists he’s just doing his best to help the Medicine Hat Tigers stay atop the WHL’s Central Division.
“I think about it for a bit, but not too much,” said Cox. “It’s more important the team wins.”
The Tigers are four points up on the Calgary Hitmen with 13 games remaining in the regular season. And with the Hitmen holding two games in hand, the race will likely go down to the final few games.
But Cox has a much healthier lead in the scoring race, his 94 points well ahead of runner-up and linemate Cole Sanford.
“Obviously it would be nice to win it,” said Cox of the scoring title. “But if you think about it too much, you put yourself under more pressure and more stress. It’s more important we maintain first place, then do well in the playoffs. Everyone wants to win the Memorial Cup.”
It was a dream Cox didn’t have four years ago. Not claimed in the WHL Bantam draft following his final season with the Semiahmoo Minor Hockey Association, Cox played one season with the Major Midget league’s Valley West Hawks. He had set his sights on playing Junior A hockey with the Surrey Eagles and pursuing a university scholarship south of the border.
“My uncle Mark (Taylor) went to the University of North Dakota and on to the NHL (National Hockey League). So I always thought I’d go that way,” said Cox. “But John Batchelor, a coach at the Burnaby Winter Club (and Tigers scout), recruited me to Medicine Hat. He told their staff to list me, and I ended up going to their camp.”
Now in his fourth season with the Tigers, Cox has improved on his numbers each year. He tallied 10 times in his rookie season, then scored 16 goals in his second. Last year, his third in the league, he scored 25 goals and 82 points, good enough to crack the top 20 scorers but still 36 points shy of the league lead.
Now just six points away from the 100-point mark, he’s enjoying his best season as a Tiger.
“If you said before the season started that I would be leading the scoring race, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said. “Not a lot has changed, it’s just I’m a year older and more experienced. And I’ve played on a line with Cole Sanford for three years. He’s leading the league in goal scoring, so it’s pretty easy for me. I just pass the puck to him.”
The chase for a division championship and the scoring title continues tomorrow (Wednesday) in Manitoba against the Brandon Wheat Kings. It will the the first game in 11 days for Cox, who was suspended three games after a Feb. 14 game in Medicine Hat in which he was assessed a penalty for boarding Calgary Hitmen captain Kenton Helgesen.
“It was an awkward play. He was off balance a bit when I hit him,” said Cox. “I got a minor penalty on the play, but he was injured. And when someone gets injured on a play like that, there’s usually a suspension.”
Undrafted in the NHL Entry Draft last spring, the knock against Cox may be his size. At five-foot-eight, 164 pounds, he isn’t among the biggest players in the game. But he has playmaking skills, and his speed on skates is a trait shared with his great-grandfather – Fred “Cyclone” Tayor – a member of the 1915 Stanley Cup champion Vancouver Millionaires and a man who remains “a huge role model in the family.”
“I don’t worry about my size, I just know I’m a good player,” Cox said. “It doesn’t bother me. I just go out and play, and I’m putting up good numbers.”