The Warriors closed out the regular season with a 6-0 victory over the Swift Current Broncos at Mosaic Place on Saturday night, with the win giving the Tribe a 40-20-6-2 record and marking the third straight season they’ve reached that level of success. Making things all the more impressive is that they were able to do so despite the Western Hockey League knocking four games off the schedule, giving the Tribe only 68 games to reach the milestone compared to 72 in past years.
And that’s only touching on one of the team-wide marks the Warriors hit this season.
“We accomplished a lot of great things this year and not a lot of people thought we would,” said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter, pointing out that the victory gave the Tribe 202 wins in the last five years, behind only Brandon with 203 wins in the same span. Then there’s their road record, including a new team mark for wins with 24, the most road wins in the Eastern Conference over the last five years and 20 road wins in each of the last three seasons leading the entire WHL.
“It goes to the traditions and culture we’ve built here, expectations of making the playoffs and competing for a playoff spot every year and the style of hockey we play,” Hunter said. “I couldn’t be more proud of this group and how they play together as a team.”
Carson Denomie, Tristin Langan with a pair of goals, Justin Almeida, Kjell Kjemhus and Daemon Hunt all scored for Moose Jaw, who had 22 saves from Brodan Salmond to earn the shutout.
“It was nice to get the shutout, I’ve been close a couple times lately and it was nice to finally get another one, especially to close out my last regular season junior hockey game,” Salmond said. “But we have some big games coming up, a big week of practice and we’re looking forward to the series against Saskatoon.”
The Warriors fired 46 shots at Swift Current’s Riley Lamb.
With the regular season officially in the books, the focus of the next week will be preparation for the playoffs and their first-round series with the Saskatoon Blades beginning Friday in Saskatoon.
Games 3 and 4 of the series revert to Moose Jaw on Mar. 26 and 27 at Mosaic Place. Game time for both contests is 7 p.m.
