The Warriors scored four goals in the second period and outshot the Swift Current Legionnaires 29-4 in the process on their way to a 6-0 victory at Mosaic Place.
“It was a good game, they had a young team out there and we did too,” said Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber of the match-up. “We kind of got the kinks out in the first period and in the second we played hard. It was good to get that under our belts.”
The opening frame – the first period of the pre-season for the new-look mini-Tribe – saw the two teams emerge scoreless, with the Legionnaires coming out on top on the shot clock.
That all changed dramatically midway through the second. The Warriors simply took over the game, hemming Swift Current in their zone for extended periods of time and peppering goaltender Vincent Pinsonneault with shots. The Legionnaires netminder was up to the task for the majority of the onslaught, giving up a power play goal to Ethan Peters with 5:22 gone in the frame, but the Warriors would eventually wear the entire defence down and score three goals in the final 4:02 of the period.
Lucius Schmidt, Evan Callaghan and Connor McGrath all netted markers to put the Warriors up 4-0 heading into the final frame.
“A lot of it was just taking away time and space,” Weisgerber said. “We were talking about it in the first week that we want to be a tough team to play against, we want to be taking away time and space all over the ice. It generates turnovers and I think that’s more or less what happened. We had a lot of turnovers and we capitalized on that.”
Austin Reschny and Atley Calvert each had single markers in the third.
The contest was called with just over a minute remaining due to a half-hour power outage at Mosaic Place.
The two teams are back in action Sunday in Swift Current.
“It was nice to have the boys get some competition in them instead of beating up on each other all the time, we finally get to play some other teams,” Weisgerber said. “I’m sure they’ll have a different line-up tomorrow and we’ll have a few different guys out as well and we’ll see what happens.”
