Moose Jaw, SK — Matthew Savoie came just as advertised in his first game with the Moose Jaw Warriors.
The Buffalo Sabres prospect had two goals and five points to help lead the Warriors to a 7-2 win over the Vancouver Giants on Saturday night during the team’s Conexus Warriors & Legends Hall of Fame game.
“It was a lot of excitement for me,” Savoie said of playing his first game for the Warriors. “The guys I was with in Sweden made it real easy to acclimate myself with this team.”
The win was the seventh in the last eight games for the Warriors, who improve to 24-15-0-2 on the season and sit four points back of Medicine Hat for second in the Eastern Conference.
“I thought we did a good job in the D zone taking time and space away and not giving them a whole bunch inside, and we had the puck a lot in their zone, we cycled, went low-to-high, still could shoot the puck a bit more but it was a great game,” Warriors associate coach Scott King said.
Jagger Firkus had two goals and four points in the win for the Warriors, moving into a tie with Prince George Cougars forward Zac Funk for the WHL scoring lead with 75 points. Firkus has played six less games than Funk.
Firkus opened the scoring for the Warriors with 16 seconds left in the first period.
Yager followed that up with his 19th of the season on the power play 6:46 into the second period to make it 2-0 for Moose Jaw. This was the 200th point of Yager’s WHL career.
Vancouver got on the board with a goal from Ty Halaburda midway through the second, but Denton Mateychuk answered right back for the Warriors only 1:56 later to restore the two-goal lead heading into the third.
Savoie struck for two goals in 2:46 to make it a 5-1 advantage for the Warriors. The first one came shorthanded just 1:55 into the third and then he followed it up with a power play goal, giving him 13 on the season.
The Giants cut the lead back down to three when Will Subject scored with 7:34 gone in the third.
Firkus would seal the win with his 32nd of the season with 4:15 to play in the third and the Connor Schmidt buried his second of the year with 2:02 left to make it a 7-2 final.
“Savoie is dangerous, he makes stuff happen on his own and the thing that allows him to have so much success is he does use his teammates, little give-and-go plays and you see the hockey IQ with him,” King said on Savoie’s debut with the Warriors.
Jackson Unger earned his league-leading 21st win of the season with 23 saves on the night, including a save-of-the-year candidate in the third period.
Moose Jaw finished 3-for-5 on the power play and 1-for-2 on the penalty kill in the win.
The Warriors have a big week coming up as the team will host Lethbridge on Wednesday before battling the Swift Current Broncos in a home-and-home set on Friday and Saturday.