The two teams met for the third time in a little over a month in Western Hockey League action and the Warriors suffered their third defeat at the hands of the Hitmen in the process, dropping a 4-1 decision at Mosaic Place.
The loss was the fourth straight for the Tribe and saw them fall to 9-11-1-0 on the season, four points back of the Brandon Wheat Kings for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, but with five games in hand.
The Hitmen got the job done through solid defensive play from their defencemen on out, limiting the Warriors to only 18 shots, including only two in the first period.
“They’re a veteran-laden team in the back end and on the first two lines, they’re all 18- and 19- and 20-year-old guys and we’re not going to generate a lot of offence against those teams,” said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter. “We have to play tight and play the right way, get shots when we can and get in the dirty areas.”
Warriors defenceman Cole Jordan celebrates his first Western Hockey League goal.Warriors rookie defenceman Cole Jordan scored the first goal of his WHL career at the 6:11 mark of the second period, with his marker pulling Moose Jaw to within one after Jonas Peterek and Orca Weisblatt had given Calgary a 2-0 lead.
“Z [Libor Zabransky] just went D-to-D with me there and I just walked in with the shot, the rebound popped back up in the slot for me and I just put it home and kind of blacked out from there,” Jordan said of the goal. “It’s a pretty surreal feeling, I don’t really know how to explain it but it felt really good.”
The lack of offensive output was naturally a bit of concern for the 17-year-old rearguard, even with the talent stacked against them on the night.
“We just have to jump the middle of the ice and try and get pucks through, we didn’t do a good enough job of that tonight and I guess the result showed,” Jordan said. “There’s a lot of fast teams in this league, we just need to be able to match their speed every night and compete every night and try to do better than we did tonight.”
Mark Kastelic scored his 16th of the season with 2:04 left in the second to give the Hitmen a 3-1 lead through two before former Warriors defenceman Jett Woo capped off scoring midway through the third.
Warriors prospect Jagger Firkus, here in action against Calgary’s Devan Klassen, played his first regular season game at Mosaic Place on Saturday.“We hung in there, but our puck management wasn’t great,” Hunter said. “They’re a better team than us, they’re built to win now, they’re built to go deep in the playoffs and we’re a rebuilding team. We saw lots of good things with Jagger Firkus and Josh Hoekstra coming up, real good stuff from those guys, and I thought some of our D played well in the two games last night and tonight… But we still have to learn to play the game the right way and play a little faster.”
Calgary improved to 13-6-2-1 and hold down the first wild card spot while sitting fourth in a stacked Central Division.
Adam Evanoff turned aside 27 shots for the Warriors, Brayden Peters made 17 stops for Calgary.
The Warriors will now once again have a full week off before hosting the Medicine Hat Tigers on Friday, Nov. 29.
.png;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
