With the way things have gone between the Moose Jaw Warriors and Calgary Hitmen in the majority of their meetings this season, it stood to reason their match-up on Sunday afternoon would be a low-scoring and tight-checking affair.
As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened.
Atley Calvert scored the game-winner with 3:43 remaining in regulation and the Warriors would take a 2-1 victory over the Hitmen in front of 4,841 fans at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary.
Moose Jaw now has points in eight of their last 10 games and have improved to 32-16-0-3 with the win, once again moving a point clear of Saskatoon for third place in the Eastern Conference and five back of Red Deer. The Blades have four games in hand and the Rebels three, with Moose Jaw having played the most games in the league to this point at 51.
Neither team had much in way of continuous zone time in the first period, but it wasn’t due to a lack of opportunities, especially for the Hitmen. Calgary ended up with the first two power plays of the game in the opening 20 minutes, but couldn’t generate much by way of offence and ended up not even getting a shot on net during the second man-advantage.
The Warriors would have the two best scoring chances in the period, first when Matthew Gallant was stymied by a Brayden Peters blocker save with six minutes to play and again when Lynden Lakovic rang a shot off the post while on breaking in on the rush a couple minutes later.
Calgary opened scoring 4:14 into the second period, with Grayden Siepmann taking a cross-ice pass from Tomas Marinkovic and sneaking a shot through traffic and into the Warriors net.
The lead lasted all of 41 seconds, though, as Ryder Korczak tied things up with a laser beam of a slapshot top shelf blocker side from the right face-off circle.
The two teams settled into a back-and-forth battle from there, and the Warriors finally found a way to break through as time wound down in regulation.
Calvert scored his team-leading 30th goal of the season -- moving into a tie for sixth in that category in the WHL in the process -- by taking a two-on-one feed from Ryder Korczek, getting a shot off on Peters that the Hitmen goaltender was able to stop and lifting the rebound into the open net.
Connor Ungar went to work from there, making a handful of saves as the Hitmen pressed for the winner with Peters pulled and eventually taking his league-leading 26th win of the season. The overage netminder finished the game with 35 saves and also saw his save percentage improve to .925, tops in the WHL among eligible goaltenders.
The Warriors now have a couple of days off before they host the Edmonton Oil Kings on Wednesday at the Moose Jaw Events Centre. Game time is 7 p.m.
