Medicine Hat, AB – The Moose Jaw Warriors surrendered five straight goals to the Medicine Hat Tigers and dropped an 8-4 game at Co-op Place on Saturday night.
The Warriors led 2-0 in the first period and 3-2 in the second period, but couldn’t finish the job once again in their third straight loss.
“The first ten minutes couldn’t get much better for our group, we were hungry on pucks, getting pucks in below the circles and we were able to make plays because of that and we obviously took our foot off the gas and never seemed to find it again,” Warriors assistant coach Curtis Pereverzoff said.
Rilen Kovacevic and Lynden Lakovic had two goals each in the loss for Moose Jaw.
The Warriors were outshot 21-6 during the second period and 43-24 overall in the game.
Pereverzoff said Moose Jaw didn’t react quick enough to the pressure from the Tigers in the defensive zone.
“We knew [Medicine Hat] is a team that has skill, but they play a pretty simple game, getting pucks to the net and looking at getting past the second layer and banging home loose rebounds and they were obviously able to do that tonight,” he said.
“It’s something that we’re going to have to clean up and pay a little bit more attention to here in our defensive zone coverage.”
The Warriors struck for goals from Lakovic and Kovacevic only 1:36 apart midway through the first period to take an early 2-0 lead.
Medicine Hat fought back in the second half of the period and picked up goals from Marcus Pacheco and Hunter St. Martin to tie the game at 2-2 after one.
Kovacevic scored his second of the night, and sixth of the season, with 9:39 gone in the second to put the Warriors back in front 3-2, but it was all Tigers after that.
Bryce Pickford, Oasiz Wiesblatt and Brayden Ryan-MacKay scored in the final seven minutes of the second to give the Tigers a two-goal lead heading into the third.
The Tigers kept the offence humming to start the third with back-to-back goals from St. Martin to move in front 7-3.
Lakovic answered back with his ninth of the season with 6:10 to go in the third, but Medicine Hat responded 1:19 later with a goal from Wiesblatt to seal the win.
The Warriors went 0-for-2 on the power play for the night, while Medicine Hat was 1-for-4.
The Warriors will get a couple of days to regroup before they host the Swift Current Broncos at the Hangar on Tuesday night.