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The Moose Jaw Warriors wanted to see where they stacked up against the CHL’s top team early in the season and came away with a positive result.
Brayden Yager scored twice and Connor Ungar made 26 saves as the Warriors handed the Winnipeg ICE a 4-1 loss at the Moose Jaw Events Centre on Saturday night.
“We just played really fast, pushed their D back, used delaying and stuff like that to get ourselves more time to make plays and I thought we did a really good job,” Yager said.
Atley Calvert and Denton Mateychuk also scored in the win for the Warriors as they handed Winnipeg its first loss of the season.
Assistant coach Scott King said the Warriors matched up well against the ICE.
“I thought for three periods we played a real solid game, I thought we deserved to win, defended well, didn’t give them a whole lot in home plate, kept them to the outside and found ways to keep grinding and get goals, so proud of them,” he said.
The Warriors limited the quality chances for Winnipeg’s high-powered offence, keeping them to the outside and allowing Ungar to put together another stellar performance in goal.
The 20-year-old netminder improved to 4-0 this season with a 2.25 goals against average and a 0.930 save percentage after stopping 26 of 27 shots in the victory.
“He’s a rock back there,” Yager said. “You can play with a lot of trust back there when he’s in net, so he’s been a huge part of our success so far.”
After a back-and-forth start to the game, the Warriors stole momentum late in the first period when Calvert snapped home his fourth of the season.
The ICE responded early in the second when Matthew Savoie snapped it past Ungar with just 5:48 gone in the frame.
Yager answered back with just over five minutes left in the second, finishing off a give-and-go with Jagger Firkus for his second of the year, which put Moose Jaw up for good.
Mateychuk added the insurance for the Warriors midway through the third with his first of the season.
Then Yager sealed the win with an empty net goal in the final minute.
“There was a lot of good checking tonight, a lot of good stick checking, body checking… it was one of those nights where it wasn’t going to be fancy,” King said. “I liked the way we identified early, we’re just going to play a real solid, smart game and stuck with it the whole time.”
Yager said the Warriors knew they needed to play a strong defensive game to win.
“Good offence is a good defence is a cliché saying, but I thought our defence played really well, just making simple plays, moving it up to the forwards and then us using our speed,” he said.
“If you’re only allowing one goal against Winnipeg, you’re going to give yourself a good chance.”
The Warriors and ICE finished with 27 shots each on the night and each team went 0-for-1 on the power play.
Moose Jaw will look to finish off a perfect week when they travel to Saskatoon to face-off with the Blades on Sunday afternoon. Puck drops at 4 p.m.