Warriors split weekend pair
When you play a 72-game schedule in any sport, things are bound to get a little boring when you get into the late-middle part of the season. Even moreso when things are going extremely well -- when you expect a certain result every night, and that result consistently happens, well, what’s there to play for?
Throw in a huge lead at the top of the standings and you have the perfect recipe for complacency.
And complacency can be dangerous, something the Moose Jaw Warriors found out firsthand over the last two weekends. After falling 5-3 to the Medicine Hat Tigers on the road the Jan. 27 weekend, the Warriors lost the first contest of a two-game set this past weekend 3-1 to the Red Deer Rebels – a team 40 points behind them in the Western Hockey League standings. It was only the second time this season the Tribe had dropped back-to-back games, and it was a wake-up call. The next night? A comfortable 4-1 win over the Prince George Cougars.
Back on track. So far.
“We’re not going to run the table forever and it’s that time of year where the games get a little mundane and you forget how to play a little bit,” said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter. “When you’re only playing the weekends it’s hard, we’ve been doing things a little differently and it paid off on Saturday. Friday night we just couldn’t get it going, but we learned from our mistakes and it’s better to lose two in a row this time of year instead of the playoffs.”
Josh Brook scored the Warriors’ only goal 13:19 into the second period as the Tribe looked scrambly and out-of-sorts much of the night.
Chris Douglas, Brandon Hagel and Kristian Reichel scored for Red Deer, with Hagel’s game winner coming midway through the third period.
Brody Willms made 25 saves in taking the loss, Riley Lamb had 32 saves for the Rebels.
“We went through a period of time where we played a lot of average teams and there weren’t a lot of challenges and that hurt our push and our drive,” said Hunter. “It came a little bit easy and we lost to P.A., had some overtime games against Medicine Hat, things like that, where we didn’t get in a groove and play hard every night. So we’re aiming to challenge the team to push every shift, every period and not get into cruise control.
“It’s the old cliche, you can’t just turn it on when you want to. You have to be in that mode, that challenge mode and drive mode.”
Warriors 4, Prince George 1
It was a different story one night later, as Justin Almeida had a goal and two assists to go along with single markers from Tate Popple, Brandon Schuldhaus and WHL leading scorer Brayden Burke in their commanding win.
Adam Evanoff made 22 saves; the Warriors fired 48 at Prince George’s Taylor Gauthier.
Josh Maser had the Cougars’ lone marker. The win was the 40th win of the season for the Tribe as they continue to hold first place overall in the WHL at 40-9-1-2. “We had 42 last year and it would be nice to break the 45 record mark,” Hunter said. “We have 20 games to do that and I’m confident we will and we’ll see how things play out in the end.”
The Warriors are back in action for a pair of home games this weekend against Lethbridge on Feb. 9 and Kootenay on Feb. 10.