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.

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