The Moose Jaw Warriors once again rose to the occasion against one of the top teams in Canada.
Moose Jaw handed the top ranked Seattle Thunderbirds a 6-2 loss at the Moose Jaw Events Centre on Saturday night.
“When you’re playing good teams, you have to be at your best and we certainly were,” Warriors assistant coach Scott King said. “We played three really solid periods.”
Coming off a tough shootout loss against Calgary on Friday, the Warriors bounced back in a big way, striking for four goals in the first period and rolling from there.
“The big thing for us going into this game was being more simple, sometimes you’ve got to make the same boring plays every time, keeping it simple and playing fast,” Warriors forward Brayden Yager said.
Yager led the Warriors with four assists on the night, while Atley Calvert posted two goals and three points.
Moose Jaw has now beat each division leader this season, including wins over the top-two ranked teams in the Canadian Hockey League in the last 11 days.
Yager said the Warriors’ preparation has been key against the top teams.
“Preparation is an underestimated part of the game,” he said. “When we’re going against a really good team, we seem to prepare a little better.”
Josh Hoekstra opened the scoring with his fifth of the season just 5:34 into the game and got the Warriors rolling.
Eric Alarie followed that up a little over five minutes later, burying his tenth of the season off a great feed from Yager to make it 2-0.
The Warriors kept the pressure on and Calvert fired home a power play goal just 3:25 later to put Moose Jaw in front by three.
Only 38 seconds later, Robert Baco banged home a rebound at the side of the net for his seventh of the season, making it a 4-0 lead for the Warriors.
Jared Davidson would get one back for the Thunderbirds late in the first period.
The Warriors responded quickly to start the second though. After killing a power play, Moose Jaw went to work on its own man advantage and Ryder Korczak scored his 14th of the season just 1:46 into the period.
Gracyn Sawchyn cut the lead back down to three with a power play goal, but Calvert answered back for the Warriors with his second of the night and team-leading 22nd of the season to make it 6-2 after two.
The Warriors kept the Thunderbirds at bay in the third period, outshooting them 10-8 to seal the win.
“We were determined in our own end to back, we were determined in the neutral zone to slide pucks in and go after it, so credit to the guys,” King said. “It was a tough one last night, you could feel the mood was a little bit down this morning, but they came to the rink ready to go and all the credit goes to them.”
Connor Ungar put together another strong game in between the pipes for the Warriors, making 37 saves in the win.
Moose Jaw’s power play was firing on all cylinders, going 3-for-5 on the night, while the penalty kill finished 1-for-2.
The Warriors remain in fourth place in the Eastern Conference, three points ahead of the Hitmen and six points back of the Saskatoon Blades.
Moose Jaw will be on the road for two games to start next week in Edmonton on Tuesday and Red Deer on Wednesday before returning home to host the Portland Winterhawks on Friday.