It’s safe to say the Moose Jaw Warriors appear to be on a bit of a roll through the first two games of the Western Hockey League playoffs.
One night after their 2-1 double-overtime victory over the Lethbridge Hurricanes at the Moose Jaw Events Centre, the Warriors were just as good defensively and a lot better with the puck as they’d roll to a 5-1 victory in Game 2.
As a result, the Warriors will take a two-games-to-none lead into Lethbridge when the series hits the road on Tuesday night -- and that’s exactly what head coach Mark O’Leary was hoping to see from his troops when the post-season started.
“I might have had a different answer if we’d lost tonight, but when you win it, it’s absolutely important,” O’Leary said. “We’re supposed to win the games at home, and as the old saying goes, the series doesn’t start until the home team loses. We’re going into a tough place to play hockey, we’re looking forward to the challenge, but we won the games we were supposed to.”
Things were once again close in the early going, as Atley Calvert scored the lone goal of the first period and Ryder Korczak gave the Warriors a 2-0 lead through two.
Lucas Brenton then made it a 3-0 edge 8:42 into the third before Anton Astashevich got one back for Lethbridge a little over a minute later, but that would be the last good news for the visitors.
Denton Mateychuk restored the three-goal lead only 47 seconds after Astashevich’s marker and Brenton added his second just over a minute after that goal to close out scoring.
All-in-all it was a far cry from Friday’s defensive showcase, and as positive a sign for the Warriors going forward as could be.
“I really liked our energy and I thought we played a really good hockey game,” O’Leary said.
“We realized we’re playing against a really good checking team, they make things hard, and sometimes the biggest test you have is to stick with the plan because they make things hard. I think we did that tonight, we had four lines and six defencemen that were all involved in doing the right things. I’m proud of the way we’re playing without the puck and I thought we took a step in how we executed with the puck.”
It certainly doesn’t hurt to have a goaltender playing as well as Connor Ungar is right now. The overage netminder has allowed two goals on 72 shots over eight periods in the series and has been the rock in net the team was hoping to see.
Combine that with a defensive corps focused on taking care of their own end, and you get results like Games 1 and 2.
“It’s always number one in playoff hockey, looking after the front of your net,” O’Leary said. “It starts with Connor, we know he’s going to be there to make the big save and that’s what he does best. It’s not always the shot volume, we certainly saw that through five periods last night, but it’s when he makes the save, the big save that gives your guys the second opportunity. Tonight he was doing just that.”
All told, Ungar would finish with 21 saves on the night, while Bryan Thomson turned aside 29 shots at the other end of the ice.
Now, it’s off to Lethbridge for Game 3, and the team is expecting games that are just as difficult when they take the ice at the Enmax Centre on Tuesday night.
“Every game is going to be a little bit tougher, but it remains the same,” O’Leary said. “The plan is the plan and we’ll just keep forging forward.”
