Warriors’ skill opportunistic in OT win over Blades

Saskatoon holds 43-17 edge in shots on goal in loss

The Warriors celebrate an OT winner from Maximus Wanner, left.

The Moose Jaw Warriors took a page out of the script of the 2000s era Calgary Flames of Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff when it came to winning a hockey game.

That meant the script for victory required your goaltender to make an extraordinary amount of saves, while a skilled guy pumped in some timely offence. Facing the host Saskatoon Blades on Wednesday night at the SaskTel Centre, the Warriors received a 39 save performance from star overage netminder Connor Ungar and a four point night from star right-winger Atley Calvert, who had two goals and two assists, en route to posting a 5-4 overtime victory.

Just 45 seconds into a three-versus-three overtime session, the Warriors burst into the Saskatoon zone on a rush. Warriors star centre Brayden Yager brought the puck in over the blue-line and made a drop pass to Calvert.

Atley Calvert had two goals and two assists for the Warriors.

Calvert had the puck at the point and fed a smart pass to offensive-defenceman Maximus Wanner, who was deep down the left wing alone in the Saskatoon zone. Wanner skated in on the Saskatoon goal, waited for Blades netminder Ethan Chadwick to start going down in the butterfly, and roofed home the winner over Chadwick’s shoulder on the short side of the net to stun most of the 2,929 spectators in attendance.

While the Warriors were outshot 43-17 in the contest, they inexplicably found a way to run their winning streak to four straight games improving to 28-14-0-2. With the extra time setback, the Blades record moved to 27-9-3-1 to sit equal with the Warriors 58 standings points.

The Warriors currently sit third overall in the WHL’s Eastern Conference due to having more wins than the Blades, but Saskatoon has four games in hand on Moose Jaw.

Connor Ungar makes one of his 39 saves for the Warriors.

Wednesday’s encounter proved to be head scratcher for Blades supporters. After the game’s opening 20 minutes, the Blades looked like they would bounce back from a 3-1 setback they sustained one night earlier against the Warriors at the Moose Jaw Events Centre in Moose Jaw.

The Blades came flying out of the gate. They opened the game’s scoring at the 4:31 mark of the first period, when Belarusian import right-winger Egor Sidorov popped home a rebound at the right side of the Moose Jaw goal from a shot taken by Blades standout defenceman Tanner Molendyk.

The tally marked the sixth goal in four games for Sidorov.

The Blades celebrate a first period goal from Egor Sidorov (#19).

The Blades held a 7-0 edge in shots on goal 10 minutes into the first and exited the frame with a 12-4 advantage in that department.

In the second frame, both sides decided to dial things back to the run-and-gun era of the 1980s, which seemed to play to the Warriors advantage.

Calvert scored on his team’s sixth shot of the contest deflecting a point blast from star centre Ryder Korczak to even the score at 1-1 at the 6:52 mark of the second. Just 10 seconds later, Blades star left-winger Conner Roulette put the Blades back ahead 2-1 gathering a loose puck and popping it into an empty net after Ungar and Warriors defenceman Lucas Brenton mishandled a shoot in.

Conner Roulette netted a pair of goals for the Blades.

The visitors quickly responded with a pair of goals to go ahead 3-2 with 10:03 remaining in the second period with tallies coming off the sticks of Ryder Korczak and Jagger Firkus on the Warriors seventh and eighth respective shots of the contest. Calvert picked up his first helper of the contest on Korczak’s tally.

The Blades proceeded to pull starting netminder Austin Elliott after Moose Jaw’s third goal. Elliott stopped 5-of-8 shots fired his way. Chadwick turned away 7-of-9 shots in relief in being credited with the extra time setback.

Just 3:24 after Chadwick entered the contest, he was beaten by a shot that accounted for Calvert’s second tally of the contest, with this one coming on a Moose Jaw power play to increase the Warriors advantage to 4-2. Calvert corralled the puck after it changed direction on a crazy bounce right to him and the break allowed him to score into an empty cage.

The Blades work frantically to defend their net.

With 1:52 remaining in the second, the Blades got a big traction goal with Roulette’s second of the contest to cut the Warriors lead to 4-3.

In the third, the Blades threw everything at the Moose Jaw net including the kitchen sink holding a 16-2 edge in shots on goal for the frame. The hosts were only able to beat Ungar once to force a 4-4 tie and ultimately overtime.

With 9:16 remaining in the third, Blades overage captain and offensive-defenceman Aidan De La Gorgendiere wired a point shot on goal that Ungar stopped but also produced a juicy rebound jetting out to the left side of the Moose Jaw net. Blades star centre Trevor Wong collected the rebound and popped home the equalizer into an empty cage.

The Warriors work frantically to keep the puck out of their goal.

That set the stage for the Warriors to pull out victory in overtime. Calvert hit a milestone as the four-point night allowed him to surpass 100 career points in regular season play. In 146 regular season games all with the Warriors, Calvert has 43 goals and 59 assists for 102 points.

When the dust settled, the Blades had to be wondering how they didn’t come out with a win on Wednesday. They are now left to turn the page before returning to action on Friday when they host their archrivals the 15-24-3 Prince Albert Raiders (7 p.m., SaskTel Centre).

In that contest, the Blades will be doing a promotion for the second straight year where they will play as the Saskatoon Bananas and will sell Saskatoon Bananas merchandise as part of the promotion. Fans enjoyed the comedy of the promotion when the Blades held it last season on April 1, 2022 and posted a 4-1 victory over the Warriors.

The Warriors celebrate their OT win on Wednesday.

The Warriors get back at it when they travel to Winnipeg to take on the WHL leading 31-5-1 Ice twice. The Warriors and Ice will go at it on 7 p.m. local time on Saturday and 4 p.m. local time on Sunday at the Wayne Fleming Arena.

Moose Jaw took both of their earlier meetings with Winnipeg this season on home ice. In the upcoming encounters with Winnipeg, the Warriors would prefer not to go the Iginla/Kiprusoff era of the NHL’s Flames to pull out victory, but they know they are capable of going that route if they have to.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Raiders get the effort, Warriors get the win

Remy Aquilon (#7) and the Raiders fell 4-2 to the Warriors.

PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – The effort is there, but the results aren’t.

On Saturday night before 2,274 spectators at the 2,580 seat Art Hauser Centre, head coach Marc Habscheid watched his host Prince Albert Raiders fall 4-2 to the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors. The veteran bench boss believes his players are putting in an effort to get a better result on the scoreboard.

At the moment, he said his club is going through a phase of making mistakes at inopportune times that end up being costly.

“The game is interesting,” said Habscheid. “There are parts in the schedule when you can’t score, and then there are parts in the schedule that you can’t help but to score.

Warriors LW Eric Alarie, left, and Raiders captain Reece Vitelli battle.

“Then your defence or your goaltending struggles or you’re taking bad penalties or whatever. There are just kind of ebbs and flows throughout the season, and right now we make a big mistake and it ends up in our net or we get a chance and we’ll hit a crossbar or something like that.

“That is kind of where we are at right now, so you rely on the experience and we just have to work our way through it.”

The Raiders got out to a tough start on Saturday when Warriors rookie defenceman Matthew Gallant opened the game’s scoring floating home a point shot through a screen at the 4:05 mark of the opening frame.

Josh Hoekstra scored a breakaway goal for the Warriors.

Late in the opening frame, the Raiders had a big chance to even things up, but sophomore right-winger Carson Latimer wired a shot off the post of the Moose Jaw goal.

With 66 second remaining in the first, the Warriors extended their edge to 2-0 on a breakaway goal from left-winger Josh Hoekstra, who turned 19-years-old on Saturday. Warriors star right-winger Jagger Firkus sprung Hoekstra on a breakaway with a stretch pass, and Hoekstra put home his third of the season stick side on Raiders import netminder Tikhon Chaika.

“They capitalized on their chances and we didn’t,” said Raiders 20-year-old defenceman Remy Aquilon. “It was just a tough start to the game.

The Warriors celebrate a goal from Josh Hoekstra, left.

“We have that inconsistency that we are having right now, and we are suffering from it. We just have to figure that out.”

At the 6:48 mark of the second, the two sides played two minutes of four-versus-four action with Warriors left-winger Riley Niven getting penalized for holding and Raiders star centre Ozzy Wiesblatt going off for roughing.

During that stretch of four-versus-four action, Warriors defenceman Maximus Wanner scored to give his side a 3-0 advantage and 19-year-old defenceman Trevor Thurston replied for the Raiders to cut Moose Jaw’s advantage to 3-1.

Thurston’s tally was his first with the Raiders, who acquired him in a trade on December 31, 2021.

Trevor Thurston scored the Raiders first goal on Saturday.

With 47.3 seconds remaining in the second, Firkus potted his 29^th goal of the season to give the Warriors a 4-1 advantage. Firkus had two assists to go with his tally for a three-point night.

Despite being down be three goals entering the third period, the Raiders didn’t go away.

At the 5:40 mark of the third, Raiders centre Evan Herman received a drop pass at the right wing boards from Latimer and wired home his 18^th goal of the season to cut the Warriors lead to 4-2.

Late in the third, the Raiders had a couple of other golden chances to get closer on the scoreboard. Raiders 17-year-old right winger Dallyn Peekeekoot was stopped at the doorstep of the Moose Jaw goal by Warriors overage netminder Carl Tetachuk.

Jagger Firkus had a goal and two assists for the Warriors.

Following that chance, Raiders captain Reece Vitelli fired a shot off the goalpost to put an exclamation point on the tough luck the Prince Albert side is having on the offensive end.

“The try was there,” said Habscheid. “I’m not going to complain when the try is there.

“Guys hit crossbars and sometimes they get up a couple and you can lose heart. The ice tilts, but our guys hung in there and rallied and stayed with it, didn’t lose heart and kept with it. You’d make an error, a big error and then it would end up in our net.

“That is where we are right now.”

Chaika turned away 26 shots to take the setback in goal for the Raiders (17-26-2-1). Tetachuk stopped 23 shots to pick up the win in net for the Warriors (29-17-3-2).

Evan Herman had the Raiders second goal on Saturday.

With the Raiders going through a reload type campaign, Habscheid said the team’s coaches have to continue to show trust in their players to keep their confidence up. He added if the effort keeps up the mistakes will get corrected and the positive results on the scoreboard will come.

“They try physically, and they try mentally,” said Habscheid. “We’re in a transition phase right now.

“They just have to be patient, keep their spirits up but still they have to be accountable. They have to try. They have to compete.

“They have to do it the Raider way, and for the most part, they do. Other than that, you are never going to accept losing, but guys will give you want the can.”

Dallyn Peekeekoot was stopped on a doorstep chance.

Aquilon said the players appreciate the fact that their coaches know the effort is there, but that he and his teammates still need to execute on the ice.

“It is good to know, but I mean it is on us at the end of the day,” said Aquilon. “We have to do what we have to do to win to win the games.

“I think we are not really executing the small things right, and we just have to figure that out.”

The Raiders return to action on Monday when they travel to Medicine Hat to face the Tigers. That contest starts a five-game road trip for the Prince Albert side.

The Warriors are off until Friday when they host the Swift Current Broncos (7 p.m., Mosaic Place).

Going forward, Aquilon his squad will continue to view every contest they are in as a must-win game.

“We go into every game like that,” said Aquilon. “I mean it is going to be harder on the road for sure.

The Warriors celebrate their victory on Saturday.

“We don’t have our home crowd behind us. We’ll have to use our team and rally up to win these games.”

NOTE - The Raiders wore throwback jerseys for Saturday’s game, with their old pirate logo. The Raiders jerseys with the pirate logo and star design were alternate uniforms during the period of time from about 1999 to 2001. 

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.