The Moose Jaw Warriors will be the first to tell you that for the first period and a half of their Western Hockey League contest against the Lethbridge Hurricanes on Saturday night, things didn’t look all that good.
In fact, they looked like an extension of their 4-2 loss to the Red Deer Rebels a night earlier.
But things slowly started to change midway through the second period, and once the Warriors scored their first goal, they were off to the races.
Eric Alarie and Ben Riche each had a goal and an assist through the remainder of the game and the Warriors would go on to a 4-3 victory at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
“Good teams find a way to win when they don’t play their best game, and we started off slow, we took penalties and weren’t playing our game,” said Alarie, who scored the aforementioned first Warrior goal and was named the contest’s first star. “Once we got one, we got our mojo back and got confident and we ended up needing every one of our four goals. I’m proud of the boys for the win.”
A neutral-zone turnover forced by Denton Mateychuk led to the Columbus first-rounder hitting Riche with a pass in transition, with Alarie taking a cross-ice feed in the Hurricanes zone and putting a blaster of a shot top corner glove side.
The goal came with 9:32 remaining in the second period and turned momentum in the contest well into the Warriors favour.
“I think it was just confidence,” Alarie said of the change in play. “Yesterday we played bad, to be honest, we didn’t have a good game at all. And maybe we didn’t believe in ourselves in the first period, but once we tied the game and knew we had a chance to win, the boys were motivated for sure. And motivation can be a big thing.”
Lethbridge had opened scoring seven minutes into the first, when Tristan Zandee won a face-off to the right of Warriors goaltender Connor Ungar and sent it straight back to Anton Astashevich. His near-instantaneous shot found its way through traffic and into the net, giving the Hurricanes the 1-0 lead.
The game stayed tied 1-1 until 1:09 of the third, when it was Alarie’s turn to play set up man on the Warriors’ go-ahead goal. He fired a pass out of traffic in the corner right to Riche in the slot, and a one-timer five-hole snapped the tie.
Nathan Pilling extended the Moose Jaw lead to 3-1 five minutes later, going hard to the net on the Warriors’ second power play of the game and outduelling a Lethbridge defender to stuff the puck home on Hurricanes netminder Jared Picklyk.
Lethbridge got one back with 9:32 remaining, with Alex Thacker putting a power-play shot through traffic and past a screened Ungar.
The Warriors went back on the man advantage a couple of minutes later, and it was Atley Calvert’s turn to hit the scoresheet when he had all the time and space he needed to put a shot upstairs on Picklyk and restore the two-goal lead.
The Hurricanes wouldn’t go quietly, though. Joe Arnsten got his team back within a goal with 5:07 to play when his shot from the point redirected a couple of times before finding the Warriors’ net.
That would close out scoring, and the Warriors had their all-important win.
“We know we can win every single game, we know we can score goals, but we have to be willing to be hard working and you can’t just rely on your skill,” Alarie said. “That’s what gets us in trouble sometimes, we don’t work hard enough and we expect our skill to take over. So if we work hard, we’re going to win a lot more games.”
The good thing is the WHL campaign isn’t even 10 games into the season -- the Warriors improved to 5-4-0-0 with the win, Lethbridge fell to 3-5-0-0 with the loss. And that means plenty of time to find that consistency going forward.
“It’s early in the season, we have time to find our stride and find chemistry, so I’m not worried,” Alarie said. “We have lots to improve, but at the same time we got the win tonight and I’m really happy about that.”
Brayden Yager picked up assists on the Pilling and Calvert goals, giving him three goals and 11 points and moving into a tie for ninth in WHL scoring.
Ungar was solid again and finished his night with 31 saves, the Warriors fired 34 shots at Picklyk,
The Warriors are back in action on Thursday night when the Regina Pats are in town for Military Appreciation Night. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
