The Brandon Wheat Kings scored four goals in the first 7:43 of the game and would go on to an 8-2 victory in action at the Brandt Centre in Regina, scoring five power play goals in the process
It marked the second time this season the Warriors had given up four goals in the first period, and unlike their overtime win over the Regina Pats the last time it happened, there was no comeback in the cards this time around.
“Again, we were chasing the game and I didn’t like our start,” said Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary. “The first goal was details on the backcheck and it wasn’t a first-year guy, it was our older guys missing assignments. Then it was work ethic and some penalty trouble later on with some undisciplined penalties and that stuff is in our control.
“It’s one thing if the bounces aren’t going your way, but I don’t think that was the case tonight. The things that went wrong tonight were in our control, which doesn’t leave a good taste in your mouth, but the good thing is we can fix it, too.”
Jake Chiasson opened scoring only 25 seconds in, taking a cross-ice pass from Ben McCartney on the rush and ripping a shot past Warriors goaltender Boston Bilous.
Lynden McCallun then put the Wheat Kings ahead 2-0 only 36 seconds later, Chiasson made it 3-0 seven minutes in and McCartney extended the lead to 4-0 with another power play goal only 45 seconds after that marker.
Bilous was pulled in favour of Brett Mirwald after that goal, but it made little difference.
Brayden Yager would score on a 5-on-3 power play to get one back before the period was out, but the second period was more of the same -- another four goals in the final 10 minutes, including three on the power play.
Vince Iorio scored on a 5-on-3 man advantage at 11:15 to make it 5-1 Brandon, Nate Danielson scored the first of his Western Hockey League career 46 seconds later to make it a five-goal lead and Logen Hammett picked up his first in the WHL only 57 seconds after THAT goal to make it 7-1 Wheat Kings.
Yet another 5-on-3 powerplay for Brandon saw the Wheat Kings’ Neithan Salame score their eighth goal with three minutes remaining in the second.
Calder Anderson scored on the power play for Moose Jaw with 4:28 left in the game to close out scoring.
Brandon finished 5-for-7 on the power play, Moose Jaw was 2-for-6.
Seeing so many penalties in the second period -- especially as the team was trying to find momentum and get back in the game -- naturally didn’t sit well with O’Leary.
“I think that goes back to the effort and the compete,” he said. “I think it’s hard to check with your feet and the stick on the puck, and if you don’t want to do that, the hooking and the slashing start to happen. So I think that’s where we got into trouble tonight, we weren’t willing to do the hard work and we settled for the hooking and slashing, and came up against a pretty good power play that made us pay. That doesn’t work and that was the story tonight.”
Mirwald made 38 saves in his 52:17 of action, Connor Ungar had 27 stops for the Wheat Kings.
The Warriors are back in action on Saturday when they take on the Prince Albert Raiders, and O’Leary will be looking for a better all around effort from his squad.
“We’ll learn from it,” O’Leary said. “By no means is it time to panic, and that was the message to the team, there are things that are in our control that we need to fix and we need to fix them now. If it’s a missed assignment or taking the wrong route or being in the wrong position, we can work with that and we’ll have patience with that, but the effort and compete level to start the game is a non-negotiable here and we need to be better.
Puck drop on Saturday night is 8 p.m.
