Moose Jaw, SK — The Moose Jaw Warriors keep finding ways to win.
After trailing 3-0 in the first and 4-2 in the third, the Warriors roared back to top the Medicine Hat Tigers, 6-5, in a shootout on Friday night.
“There was a couple points in the game where it was the noisiest I’ve heard this building in a long time, so that was great to see,” Warriors associate coach Scott King said.
The win was the sixth straight for the Warriors and the 11th in the last 12 games as the team moved two points back of Medicine Hat for second place in the Eastern Conference.
Denton Mateychuk had his first career Western Hockey League hat trick to pace the Warriors’ offensive attack in the win.
He said the crowd fuelled the team throughout the game.
“We had a really good crowd tonight and [Lucas Brenton] going there for his first shift of the game and teeing off a little bit, so it’s always good to see a good crowd like that and the guys getting going right away,” Mateychuk said.
King said Mateychuk led by example in the win.
“He’s a gamer, he wants to be the difference and you saw him tonight, when there was times when we were still down or clawing back in the game, he took it upon himself to make things happen,” he said.
Jackson Unger stopped all three of Medicine Hat’s shooters in the shootout to help secure the victory, which was his 10th straight win, setting a new modern era (1996-present) franchise record, which was previously set by Tim Barlow in 1998-99.
Despite some early pressure in the first period, the Warriors found themselves down 3-0 quickly.
Gavin McKenna scored twice and Hayden Harsanyi added the other as the Tigers scored three goals in 2:48 to take a three-goal lead just under eight minutes into the game.
“We took a timeout and just kind of settled down,” Mateychuk said. “We were playing pretty good to that point other than a couple of mistakes that led to odd-man rushes and plays that they capitalized on, so we didn’t want change anything because you’re not going to score three goals in one shot, you have to go step by step.”
Only 50 seconds after the Tigers went in front by three, Jagger Firkus potted his 36th of the season to get the Warriors on the board.
Then later in the first period, Mateychuk pulled Moose Jaw within one with his 10th of the season.
The score stayed that way until 8:11 into the third period when Dru Krebs’ point shot found its way through and gave the Tigers a two-goal lead.
The Warriors didn’t go away and Mateychuk cut the lead back down to one with 7:52 to play in the third.
Just over four minutes later, Lynden Lakovic buried his 10th of the season to pull the Warriors even for the first time in the game.
With 22 seconds remaining in regulation, Mateychuk found himself alone in the slot and scored his third of the night to put the Warriors in front.
After a timeout, a quick face-off win by the Tigers led to an odd-man rush and Shane Smith scored only eight seconds later to tie the game and send things to overtime.
The extra period solved nothing and in the shootout, Unger stopped all three shooters for the Tigers and Matthew Savoie scored to lift the Warriors to the win.
Moose Jaw outshot Medicine Hat, 55-28, in the game, including 29-12 in the first period.
The Warriors and Tigers will now meet for a rematch on Saturday night at Co-op Place in Medicine Hat. Puck drops at 8 p.m. CST.