Brandon, MB — When Dakota MacIntosh scored the Moose Jaw Warriors’ first goal of the night, he lifted the monkey off his back.
Saturday night’s 4-3 win in Brandon lifted a massive monkey off the Warriors’ back heading into the Christmas break.
“He lifted the monkey off the back for the guys and it was great for him to get that started,” Warriors assistant coach Curtis Pereverzoff said. “For us to eke out a win like that is really nice, especially before the break.”
Brayden Schuurman scored with 2:55 left in the third period to lift the Warriors to the one-goal win over the Wheat Kings, snapping a five-game losing skid.
It was a hard fought game from start to finish for the Warriors.
“Right from the start, emotional game and a different kind of game when you have a long break like that [from the Teddy Bear Toss], especially when it happens early, but at the same time, we got that out of the way early and we just got back to our game pretty quickly.”
The Wheat Kings opened the scoring with the Teddy Bear Toss goal from Rylen Roersma only 1:20 into the game.
After the bears were cleaned up, the Warriors battled back into the game when MacIntosh scored his third of the season just before the midway point of the period.
Carter Klippenstein put the Wheat Kings back in front just over five minutes later, but Martin Rysavy responded for the Warriors only 54 seconds after that with his 11th of the season to tie the game at 2-2 after one.
Just 19 seconds into the second period, the Warriors moved in front for the first time in the game when MacIntosh banged in his second of the night.
The score stayed that way until 4:29 into the third period when Brett Hyland tied the game for the Wheat Kings.
The Warriors had some big penalty kills throughout the game, including one late in the third period and just minutes later, Schuurman took a feed from Lucas Brenton and scored his seventh of the season to put Moose Jaw in front for good.
“All the kills were quite big tonight, especially the one in the third,” Pereverzoff said. “It just came down to a sense of urgency and making sure we were jumping checks quick, sprinting and not waiting.”
Schuurman had a goal and two points in the win and MacIntosh scored twice.
Jackson Unger made 27 saves to backstop the Warriors to the win.
Moose Jaw finished 0-for-1 on the power play, but went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.
After struggling to finish the job over the past few weeks, Pereverzoff said Saturday’s win gives the Warriors a good confidence boost heading into the Christmas break.
“Even in the stretch where we lost five games, we did a lot of really good things and we were maybe on the wrong end of some unfortunate bounces, but at the same time, we put ourselves in some spots that weren’t so great either,” he said.
“This settles the storm a little bit, the guys deserve a little bit of a break here and we’ll come back on the 26th recharged and ready to go.”
The Warriors will return to game action on Friday, Dec. 29 when the team hosts the Regina Pats at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.