Three players scored their first-ever SJHL goal, including the one that was the overtime winner, as the Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings closed out their four-game homestand with a 4-3 victory over the Melville Millionaires Tuesday night. The win also snapped a losing streak the team had been in since January 9th.
“I thought the boys played a solid game tonight,” said Red Wings assistant coach Nathan Deck after the game. “We’ve been talking about doing little things and habits, and they didn’t make too many mistakes tonight which was good, and we got the result we wanted and it was well deserved tonight.”
“It feels great for the boys to win,” said Nolan Henderson, who scored the overtime winner at the 2:56 mark of the extra period. “We battled hard all night; I’m just glad we could get rewarded at the end there.”
Melville had actually scored the first goal of the game when Enrique Fontes scored at the 4:55 mark of the opening frame. It wouldn’t take long for the Wings to get the goal back, though.
Just 40 seconds later, defenseman Sam Skillestad scored his first SJHL goal, banging home a rebound past Alexis Giroux to make it 1-1. Colby Feist was credited with the assist on the goal.
The Millionaires would then retake the lead 8:22 into the period, as Noah Wills managed to beat Dazza Mitchell to make it 2-1.
The lead wouldn’t survive the period, with another defenseman scoring his first goal of the season for the Red Wings. Nic Kovacs was able to get the puck past Giroux, finishing off a ruck that was set up on a pass from Mi-Kwan Tallman to Kirk Mullen, who slid it over to Kovacs for the tally with 6:32 to play in the first.
Weyburn then took the lead in the second period as Ethan Whillans took a pass from Ethan Clements and buried it over the left-hand shoulder of Giroux from the top of the right-wing faceoff circle. This gave the Wings their first lead of the game with 5:48 to play in the period.
In the third, the Millionaires would find a way to even the score up just 1:45, as Rylan Bruns would score, making it 3-3.
Neither team would be able to solve the other goaltender, but not for lack of trying, with Red Wings firing nine shots on Giroux, none of them getting past him. Meanwhile, Mitchell stopped 11 of the 12 shots he faced.
In the overtime period, there was just one shot on goal, and it would come from Henderson, burying a feed from Feist to give the Red Wings the 4-3 overtime victory.
The Red Wings will look to make it two wins in a row on Friday when they travel to Melville for a rematch against the Millionaires. Then, the Red Wings host the Kindersley Klippers at home Saturday night.