Moose Jaw, SK — It wasn’t pretty at times, but the Moose Jaw Warriors fought their way to their fifth straight win on Saturday night.
Brayden Yager scored on the power play in the final minute of regulation to lift the Warriors to a 4-3 win over the Swift Current Broncos.
“Both games this weekend were fast paced, they played really hard and so did we, it was pretty physical, we did a pretty good job of pushing back and not letting our foot off the gas,” Yager said after the win.
Atley Calvert had two goals for Moose Jaw, while Yager finished with a goal and two points, and Matthew Savoie had a goal and three points in the win.
Jackson Unger made 30 saves in the win for his ninth straight victory between the pipes for the Warriors.
Special teams were key in the game as the Warriors finished 2-for-7 on the power play and 6-for-6 on the penalty kill, including Savoie’s shorthanded goal.
“Start to finish, it was a battle,” Warriors assistant coach Curtis Pereverzoff said. “We had a good first period, got on our heels a bit in the second period, but credit to our group, we knew things were going to tighten up in the third period and it was good to capitalize on that late chance.”
After a strong first five minutes for the Broncos, Calvert swung the momentum in the Warriors’ favour, snapping home his 27th of the season just 6:09 into the game.
Calvert would make it 2-0 for the Warriors, banking home his second of the night with 49 seconds left in the first period.
In the second, the Warriors would extend their lead to three when Savoie scored a shorthanded goal for his 15th of the season only 3:59 into the middle frame.
The Broncos flip the game in their favour over a six-minute span in the second, starting with a goal from Ryan McCleary with 10:15 left in the second.
Rylan Gould would then score back-to-back goals to tie the game at 3-3 after two.
The third period was back-and-forth with both sides having chances to move in front, but the Warriors benefited from a five-on-three power play late as Yager wired home his 21st of the season with 31 seconds left for the win.
“You see a lot of home-and-homes that end up with a split, so that’s what we talked about this morning, is just continuing to play the right way,” Pereverzoff said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to treat these games as playoff games, they’re going to be hard, points are going to be hard to come by, so just following our details and we’re going to be ready to from start-to-finish.”
The Warriors swept their weekend home-and-home with the Broncos and have now won 10 of their last 11 games, moving one point back of the Medicine Hat Tigers for second in the Eastern Conference.
Moose Jaw will square off with the Tigers next weekend in a home-and-home set.
“We’re just looking to move on up a little bit more, Medicine Hat they’re fast and physical, they play hard too, so real good test for us,” Yager said.
The Warriors and Tigers open the set in Moose Jaw on Friday.