It wasn’t an easy night by any means, but the Moose Jaw Warriors will take the win just the same.
The Warriors found themselves in a back-and-forth battle throughout the game against the Medicine Hat Tigers in Medicine Hat on Friday night, eventually coming away with a 5-4 shootout victory in Western Hockey League action.
Moose Jaw improved to 11-6-0-0 and moved within two points of the Saskatoon Blades for third place in the Eastern Conference with their second-straight win. Medicine Hat fell to 4-10-3-0 to sit in 11th place and are now winless in their last seven.
The Warriors didn’t get off to the greatest of starts, as Medicine Hat controlled the action and had a power play early in the first period, but it was Moose Jaw who would score the game’s first goal.
It was the product of hard work in the Medicine Hat zone, as the Warriors had a couple of chances before Max Wanner intercepted a Tigers clearing attempt and got off a shot from the point. Harper Lolacher was in the right place at the right time for his first Western Hockey League goal, tipping the puck past Medicine Hat goaltender Beckett Langkow with 4:45 gone.
The Warriors took advantage of their first power play of the game five minutes later. Denton Mateychuk finished off some good puck movement in the Tigers zone with a shot that Langkow stopped but had drop behind him, with Eric Alarie on the spot to put home the leftovers.
Medicine Hat got off to a good start in the second period and had another early power play, this time making the Warriors pay just as it expired. Oasiz Weisblatt scored on a perfect backhand top shelf blocker side, with the goal coming at 3:36 of the frame.
Atley Calvert restored the two goal Moose Jaw lead midway through the second, taking a feed from Max Wanner to go in on a partial breakaway, outduelling Tigers defender and putting a backhand past Langkow.
The Tigers got that back quickly, though, when Tyler MacKenzie finished off a goalmouth scramble to make it a 3-2 game with 8:48 to play in the period.
That signalled a hard turn in momentum in the game, and Weisblatt would tie things up with his second of the contest four minutes after MacKenzie’s marker.
The Warriors were able to escape the period without any further damage despite taking their third penalty in a row late in the frame, and 11:07 into the third, Jagger Firkus restored the Moose Jaw lead.
The Seattle Kraken prospect picked up the puck off the far boards, outduelled two Tigers defenders and put a shot on net that eluded Langkow to make it a 4-3 Warrior lead.
That edge didn’t last more than a couple minutes. Bogdans Hodass finished off a sustained run in the Warriors zone by putting a shot from the left faceoff circle over the shoulder of Connor Ungar.
The rest of the period solved nothing, and the Warriors were off to their first overtime of the season.
Medicine Hat had a great chance to end things in overtime when Josh Hoekstra was hit with a hooking penalty with 1:55 remaining, but the Warriors would hang on to force the shootout.
There, Brayden Yager and Denton Mateychuk would score, giving the Warriors their 5-4 win.
Ungar finished the night with 34 saves, while Langkow stopped 23 on the night.
The two teams will do it all again on Saturday night back in Moose Jaw, with puck drop at 7 p.m. at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
