The Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings scored four goals in the second period Friday night, and held on to take the first game of their best-of-seven quarterfinal series with the Battlefords North Stars by a final of 4-3.
"Took us a little while to get into it, but at the end of the day I think our guys did a really good job there in the second period, and the start of the third," Red Wings head coach Cody Mapes said after the game.
Former Red Wing Elijah Anderson would put the North Stars on the board in the first period, when he was awarded a penalty shot with 9:13 remaining. He would push the puck in past Angelo Zol, giving Battlefords an edge they would hold on to for the remainder of the period.
The second period would see Weyburn coming out on fire.
It all started with a power play goal from Liam Fitzgerald 2:16 into the frame, assisted by Jerome Maharaj and Ethan Dekay. Then, Max Chakrabarti scored on the power play to put Weyburn up with 9:26 to go in the frame. His marker was assisted by Lucas Schmid and Jaxson Ruthven.
"It was a fun, great atmosphere, and the boys played hard," Chakrabarti said of the team's effort. "It was a lot of fun tonight."
Captain Blake Betson would then make it a 3-1 lead with 3:12 to go in the second period.
"That's a great play by (Luke) Schraeder," Betson said of the goal. "That's a good heads-up play. I'm driving the net, and he sees my stick and just hits it right on the tape. So, got to give the credit to Schraeder."
Ruthven would then add a goal of his own with 55 seconds to play in the second to put the Red Wings up 4-1. His goal was assisted by Josh Sale.
The third period would see the North Stars rally to come back in the game, taking advantage of penalties by the Red Wings. A power play goal from Jordan Grill with 9:03 remaining made it 4-2. Then, Nikita Ivashchenko scored shorthanded with 1:45 to go to make it 4-3.
"We are going to have to be more disciplined tomorrow," Mapes said after. "We can't spend eight of the last 10 minutes shorthanded and expect to come out of the game with a postive outcome."
The sentiment was echoed by Betson.
"We gave up no -5-on-5 goals, so I think we've got to clean up our PK a little bit, clean up the power play a little bit, and stay out of the box, and we'll be good to go the rest of the way."
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series will be Saturday night at Crescent Point Place. If you can't make it down to the arena for the game, you can also catch all the action on Great Plains Ford Red Wing Radio Country 106.7. Dylan Fiessel will have the pregame show starting at 6:45 p.m., with puck drop at 7 p.m.