Warriors pick up pair of weekend wins over Swift Current
Moose Jaw holds on for 5-4 win Friday on Hockey Fights Cancer Night, roll to 6-0 win in rematch in Swift Current Saturday Randy Palmer - Moose Jaw Express
The Moose Jaw Warriors have had their issues with back-to-back games all season, but this past weekend the Warriors held on for a 5-4 victory over the Swift Current Broncos during Hockey Fights Cancer Night at the Moose Jaw Events Centre Friday before rolling to a 6-0 win in the rematch in Swift Current on Saturday night.
The second win of the weekend was one of the Warriors’ most complete games of the season, and led to goaltender ConQRU 8QJDU SLFNLQJ XS KLV ¿UVW VKXWRXW LQ a Warriors uniform with a 33-save performance.
The clean sheet saw Ungar’s goals against average drop to 2.37 and moved him into sixth place in the WHL in that category. The win was also Ungar’s 10th of the season, third-best in the league.
³2EYLRXVO\ WKDW ¿UVW RQH IHHOV UHDO good,” Ungar told the Warriors’ Marc Smith on the post-game show after the win. “It’s kind of nice to get that goose egg out of there, and hopefully we just keep rolling from there.”
The Warriors had six different goal scorers on the night, and just as importantly, goals from throughout their line-up.
Brayden Yager scored the lone goal RI WKH ¿UVW SHULRG EHIRUH 5REHUW %DFR DQG Jagger Firkus extended the lead to 3-0 through two. Nathan Pilling, Denton Mateychuk and Josh Hoekstra scored in the third.
Yager and Hoekstra also had assists on the night, while the recently returned 5\GHU .RUF]DN KDG D SDLU RI KHOSHUV
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Seeing the team come away with four points on a home-and-home weekend was naturally a positive for assistant coach Gord Burnett, who spoke with Warriors’ broadcaster James Gallo after the contest.
“It’s been a little bit of an Achilles heel of ours, but we performed better tonight and we’re happy about that and
we’re going to have to continue to do that,” Burnett said. “We have three backto-backs coming up here on the road trip, they’re important games and they’re all worth two points, but that second game of the back-to-back hasn’t been good for us, so we’re happy to get the win.”
Twenty-four hours earlier, the Warriors took the ice in their special mauve jerseys with photo mosaics in the numbers as part of their Hockey Fights Cancer Night.
,W ZDV WKH ¿UVW JDPH EDFN LQ WKH 0RRVH -DZ OLQH XS IRU .RUF]DN ZKR KDG EHHQ UHturned to the team earlier in the week by WKH 1HZ “It felt good, there was a little bit of rust having not skated in three days other than practice, so it was a short turnDURXQG ´ VDLG .RUF]DN ZKR ZDV SOD\LQJ KLV ¿UVW JDPH DIWHU GULYLQJ KRXUV IURP Hartford. “But I thought it was good for WKH ¿UVW WZR SHULRGV DQG WKH WKLUG SHULRG was a little bit sloppy, but we got the win and that’s the most important thing.” Baco, Max Wanner and Atley Calvert also scored for the Warriors, who led 5-1 at the 1:05 mark of the third but ended up hanging on for dear life as the period progressed. Mathew Ward scored twice and Sam McGinley had their other marker as Swift Current clawed their way back to a single goal before falling one short. Brady Birnie KDG WKHLU RWKHU JRDO LQ WKH ¿UVW SHULRG Wanner, Alarie and Mateychuk had two assists each. Jackson Unger had 30 saves in goal for Moose Jaw, Gage Alexander made 30 stops for the Broncos. Moose Jaw is now 13-8-0-0 on the season, good enough for fourth place in the Eastern Conference, four points back of the Saskatoon Blades and one up on the Calgary Hitmen. The Warriors are now on the road for seven games in the next 14 days, beginning Wednesday, Nov. 23 in Prince George against the Cougars.