The Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings travelled to Yorkton Sunday night for the final game of the 2021-22 season. For the Wings, the game was about closing out the season on a winning note, after having won their previous two games. For Yorkton, the game was about improving their seeding heading into the post-season.
Weyburn would take a 2-1 lead into the dressing room after the second period, but three goals in the span of three minutes from the Terriers early in the third would prove to be the difference, as they went on to record a 5-2 win over the Red Wings.
“Got into some penalty trouble and stuff,” said head coach Cody Mapes after the game. The Red Wings would take eight penalties over the course of the game, with Yorkton converting on two of those man advantages. “(We) gave ourselves a chance to win going into the third and we kind of ran out of gas against a team that had a little bit more to play for.”
One of those power plays came as a result of the words of Mapes. At the media timeout in the third period, Mapes was handed a two-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, and a game misconduct, by referee Al Scott, who didn’t like what he was hearing from the Red Wings bench.
The scoring for the game opened up in the first period when Zach McIntyre found the net behind Dazza Mitchell in an unusual manner. His shot went off the post, deflected off the back of Mitchell, and in. The goal, which came on the power play, was scored at the 9:10 mark of the frame.
Weyburn would reply just under four minutes later.
With 6:54 left on the clock, Kirk Mullen tucked a rebound on a shot by Mi-Kwan Tallman past Kael DePape for his tenth of the year, putting Weyburn on the board.
The Wings would then take the lead in the second period with a power play goal.
Matthew Reidy, who had waited until the second last game of the season for his first goal, would score his second in as many games with 6:27 to play in the middle frame. He tipped a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle past DePape to make it 2-1 Weyburn. The other assist on the power play goal went to Ty Mason.
In the third period, the Terriers would come out with a bit more jump in their step, at least in the first few moments of the period.
Just 3:43 into the period Tyson Janzen put a shot from the point through traffic and past Mitchell to make it a 2-2 game. Then, 29 seconds later, Colby Vranai slipped in to the slot and tipped a pass from Tanner Sklaruk in to make it 3-2 for the Terriers. The Terriers would add one more goal on a fluke, as a shot from Erik Boers that was looking to go wide deflected off the pad of Mitchell and in, making it 4-2.
Boers added one more goal on the power play with 8:32 to play to make it a 5-2 final.
With the loss, the Red Wings close out the 2021-22 season, missing the playoffs for the second season In a row. The team, however, has a very young squad, and carried a positive attitude right through until the final buzzer of the final game. It has Red Wings head coach Cody Mapes looking forward to the future of the team. For now, though, the attention turns to the off-season preparations, which will start with scouting over the next few weeks, the Red Wings Spring Camp the first weekend of April, and a whole lot more leading up to the league meetings and draft at the start of June.