The Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings found themselves down early against the La Ronge Ice Wolves Thursday night. Despite everything they threw at netminder Xavier Cannon, though, they weren’t able to finish a comeback, falling 6-3.
“I thought the effort was there,” said assistant coach Nathan Deck after the game. “We came out hard, had a good start. The first period we had three kind of big mistakes that cost us, and they scored a couple of power play goals.”
The first goal on the power play for the Ice Wolves came at the 7:16 mark when Aaron Greyeyes beat Jackson Fellner. Greyeyes would then score his second of the game just as a power play expired, making it 2-0 11:39 into the game. Less than three minutes after the Greyeyes goal, Brandon Della Paolera scored to make it 3-0 for La Ronge in the first period.
The goal from Della Paolera would also mean the end of the night for Fellner, who came to the bench and was replaced by Dazza Mitchell.
La Ronge would then open up the lead even further in the second period as Nolan Doell scored an unassisted goal just 3:21 into the middle frame. It then became 5-0 when Gavin Mattey found the twine behind Mitchell at the 9:45 mark.
From there, the Red Wings started to gain some momentum.
Braen Birnie scored an unassisted goal on the power play at the 12:38 mark. His seventh goal of the season made it 5-1 after 40 minutes of play.
In the third period, the Red Wings threw everything they could at Cannon, putting 22 shots on goal in that period alone. The chances would pay off, with Ethan Whillans finding the back of the net at the 13:36 mark, making it a 5-2 game. Birnie and Beau Larson assisted on the marker.
Then, Nik Sombrowski would put a point shot through the five-hole on Cannon less than two minutes later. The power play goal was assisted by Ian Maier and pulled Weyburn within two with just under five minutes to play.
Weyburn would continue to pressure, but eventually, the Ice Wolves were able to get the puck out to the centre line in the final minutes, and Della Paolera would send the puck down the ice from just outside the Weyburn blue line to score on the empty net to make it 6-3.
The Red Wings will now look to get back in the win column Friday night as they finish off their northern road swing. They will face the Ice Wolves one more time at the Mel Hegland Uniplex. Catch all the action on Red Wing Radio BIG106 starting with the pregame show at 7:15 p.m.