The Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings skated their way to an emphatic win over the Highway 39 rival Estevan Bruins in their final home preseason game with a 10-3 victory. Eight different skaters for the Red Wings would find the back of the twine in an offensive explosion.
Carter Bergen would open the scoring 1:57 into the first off a feed from Ryder Woods. Roan Burgess would extend the Red Wings lead to two at 7:08 on a nice pass from Simon Martin. The Bruins would respond as forward Nicklas Wytrychowski would take advantage of a 5 on 3 powerplay at 12:58 from Daniel Tverdovsky and Kade Stringer cut the lead to one. However, Red Wings defenseman Trevor Oishi would wire one home at 16:08 assisted by Bergen to take a 3-1 lead into the first intermission.
The second period would start of hot for the Red Wings as Martin would find the back of the cage off a feed from Luke Dekay just 31 seconds into the second period. Ryder Rommelaere would take advantage on the powerplay at 3:29 of the second period from Woods and Dekay.
Later in the second, Woods would get on the board assisted by Sawyer Aquila and Rommelaere at 15:05 to make it a 6-1 hockey game. The Bruins would respond on a breakaway goal from forward Oliver Kramp assisted by Parker Seymour at 17:08. However, Simon Martin would respond just 27 seconds later at 17:35 for his second goal of the night assisted by Dekay to take a 7-2 lead into the second intermission.
The third would see more scoring from the Red Wings as Woods would get his second of the night on the powerplay from Dekay and Adam Savage Keller at 4:45. The Bruins would quickly respond with their final goal of the night from forward Noah Asmundson at 5:38 assisted by Logan Goodwin and Colton Getzlaff.
The Red Wings would put it to bed though, with forward Callum Maclean scoring on a great individual effort at 11:25 of the third assisted by Devon Boyle. Finally, defenseman Josh Karman hit the double-digit goal mark for the Red Wings on the powerplay with 53 seconds left of the game assisted by Kaden Wilkins to make it a 10-3 final.
Red Wings goalie Ty Matonovich would stop 20 of 23 shots on route to the win, with Bruins goalie Jake Torget credited with the loss, stopping 19 of 26. He would be replaced in the third period by Bruins goalie Jaxon Kuchinka who let in 3 goals on 3 shots. Red Wings head coach and GM Cody Mapes enjoyed the offensive output from his team tonight.
“I like the skill set our group showed tonight. Our vets are starting to get back into the swing of things here and I thought there was a lot of good show from those guys and at the end of the day, there is guys that are making decisions hard so that's a good job by them.”
Red Wings defenseman would contribute six points on the night including 2 goals and an assist from Simon Martin, a goal from Trevor Oishi, a goal from Josh Karman and an assist from Saywer Aquila. Mapes states that this offensive output from their defense group is big for their success.
“Yeah, you know, while we were kind of talking about that, comparing to last year I thought we liked our group on the back end, and I think that we're in a very good position to start back there on day one. So, we're excited about working with those guys that you mentioned.”
The Red Wings will head on the road tomorrow to conclude preseason action at Affinity Place in Estevan for the second half of the home-and-home at 7:00 P.M. With revenge on the mind for the Bruins, Mapes says his crew will need to be ready to end the preseason the right way.
“Well, I even saw it tonight. They've got a lot of guys trying to make a hockey team too. They're going to compete hard, and they didn't quit tonight. We were on the better end of a few plays and that's just the way it goes sometimes. But tomorrow, I'm sure they'll have an older lineup again and we'll get some different guys in as well. It'll be a good game tomorrow.”