Moose Jaw, SK — For the past two games, the Moose Jaw Warriors had done damage early and late in periods, but the Brandon Wheat Kings flipped the script on them on Thursday.
Nate Danielson scored 40 seconds into the third to put Brandon in front and the Warriors couldn’t fight all the way back, falling 4-3 to the Wheat Kings at Westman Place.
“Obviously to come out to start the third the way we did, that’s not ideal, put ourselves into a bit of a hole there, but for two periods, I thought we played a really solid game,” Warriors associate coach Scott King said.
Brayden Yager had a goal and three points, while Denton Mateychuk chipped in with two assists on the night.
The Warriors led 2-1 after one and fired 27 shots on the Wheat Kings’ net through two periods, but went into the third tied at 2-2.
“We did a really good job in the first and second period, we were coming through the neutral zone with speed, we had the puck on our stick, we were doing a pretty decent job of managing it, we had a ton of zone time, we looked dangerous several shifts and we had some really good looks,” King said.
The early goal by Danielson to start the third and another from Brett Hyland later in the frame created a hole too big for the Warriors to fight their way out of.
King said the Warriors had their opportunities to extend the lead in the second period, but didn’t capitalize.
“It’s something we talked about when we got in there after the second period was hoping those opportunities weren’t going to come back and burn us and they did a little bit,” he said.
“We probably could have been up a couple going into the third, we had some real good looks with some of our real top players and it’s nothing they did wrong, they’re trying to do the right thing, the puck just didn’t go in for whatever reason.”
Jagger Firkus opened the scoring for the Warriors 6:27 into the game with his 12th goal in 12 games this season.
After Brandon tied the game up at 1-1, Yager broke in for his ninth of the season midway through the first.
With Brandon up 4-2 in the third, Martin Rysavy scored a power play goal with 13 seconds left in the game to pull the Warriors within one, but it wasn’t enough.
Jackson Unger made 23 saves in the loss for the Warriors, while Moose Jaw outshot Brandon 37-27 overall in the game.
The Warriors were 2-for-3 on the power play and Brandon went 1-for-1 with the man advantage.
Moose Jaw will return home and get set for two games at the Moose Jaw Events Centre this weekend, starting on Saturday when the Prince George Cougars come to town. The game can be heard on Country 100 with the voice of the Warriors James Gallo. The pre-game show begins at 6:40 p.m.
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