With all the focus on the Saskatoon Blades, home ice advantage and a first-round playoff meeting, the Moose Jaw Warriors are suddenly having to look in their rear-view mirror.
The Warriors went into Brandon on Saturday night and dropped a 3-2 shootout decision, and with the extra point, the Wheat Kings have now parlayed a five-game winning streak into only a three-point deficit for fourth place with four games remaining.
The good news is that with the single point, the Warriors improved to 36-23-3-3 on the Western Hockey League season and moved back into a tie with Saskatoon for home ice advantage in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Warriors have two games in hand on the 37-26-3-2 Blades and have played an equal number of games as the 35-25-3-2 Wheat Kings.
Brandon had a few decent scoring chances in the first few minutes, but the Warriors would get on the board first.
Eric Alarie would score his 22nd of the season, but it was Ryder Korczak who did a stellar job of setting things up, working his way through a pair of Wheat Kings defenders before finding a wide-open Alarie at the side of the net. Goaltender Ethan Kruger couldn’t get over in time to cover, and the Warriors had their 1-0 lead.
Korczak and Alarie were back at it with 4:14 gone in the second, this time with Alarie playing set-up man. Korczak was left alone at the side of the net and got a shot off on Kruger that the Brandon netminder was able to stop, but the rebound found Korczak’s skates, and a quick kick up to his stick left him with nothing but empty net to shoot at.
Nolan Ritchie got one back for Brandon on the power play three minutes later, but like the Warriors’ opening marker, the set-up man did all the work. Nate Danielson went end-to-end with the puck before firing a cross-crease pass to Ritchie, who tapped the pass over Warriors netminder Carl Tetachuk and in.
The Wheat Kings then tied things up at 10:10, when with the Warriors on a delayed penalty, Vincent Iorio batted a rebound out of the air in front of the net and found nothing but twine.
The Warriors had three straight power plays late in the second and early in the third but couldn’t make any of them count, and would finish the game 0-for-5 with the man advantage. Brandon was 1-for-3.
Neither team would score in the third period, and things went to overtime.
The Wheat Kings had the best chance in the extra frame when Jake Chiasson went in alone on a breakaway with just over a minute remaining, but Tetachuk was able to make the pad save.
Danielson would score the only goal of the shootout to give Brandon the victory.
Tetachuk had 29 saves in the loss, Kruger 30 in the win.
The two teams are right back at it on Tuesday when the Warriors are back in Brandon. Game time is 6 p.m.
