It was another one of those games for the Moose Jaw Warriors on Friday night.
Do enough to win, but have some facet of the game just come up a little bit short and result in a tough loss.
This time around, it was putting together a consistent effort on offence, as the Medicine Hat Tigers managed to bend but not break in their own zone while holding the Warriors in check much of the game.
The thing is, the Warriors were just as good in their own end, and that all led to a 2-1 shootout victory for the Tigers at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
Moose Jaw improved to 11-8-0-1 with the single point and are within three points of Medicine Hat and Saskatoon for first place in the Eastern Conference.
Even with the loss, Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary was pleased to see a solid defensive performance even if things didn’t go as well at the other end of the ice.
“I’m really happy as a coach, to play like that against a team that scores as many goals as they do,” O’Leary said. “A big part of what we talked about today was not getting in that track meet style and just exchanging chances. There were breakdowns and blunders where we gave up some breakaways and real good looks, but Jackson Unger made some real big saves. As a team, we played well defensively and definitely had chances to win.”
Medicine Hat opened scoring 4:15 into the game, taking advantage of an offensive zone turnover to go in on a long two-on-one, with Andrew Basra putting a shot top shelf blocker side for the 1-0 lead.
A penalty to the Tigers late in the first period sent the Warriors on the power play early in the second, and after just missing on a couple of great chances to open the frame, they’d finally break through. Brayden Schuurman took a feed from Denton Mateychuk in the high slot and put home a shot glove side for his second goal of the season 51 seconds into the period.
Neither team found the back of the net in the second frame, but the Warriors had the lion’s share of chances as Medicine Hat goaltender Evan Hay turned aside 17 shots.
The third period was much of the same, with the Tigers getting the majority of chances late . Unger had a couple of big saves to preserve the tie, stopping 11 in the frame. The Warriors nearly ended things in regulation when Dakota MacIntosh came within inches of scoring his first WHL goal, but his nasty shot from the left face-off circle would go off the crossbar.
That was a theme much of the night -- close calls for both teams around the net, but little to show for it.
“If we play hockey like that, we’re going to give ourselves chance to win each and every night,” O’Leary said. “There was a playoff feel tonight and it was good for our group to go through this. You see how important each shift is, where the decisions you make with the puck and the effort and compete you put in can make all the difference.”.
“The process is a big part of it, I’m proud of the effort, but it’s a tough pill the way we lost.”
Unger also had to be sharp in overtime and turned aside five shots, but a late penalty to the Tigers gave Moose Jaw a chance to finish things off. The 23-second power play saw the Warriors get a couple solid opportunities in close, but they’d unable to get a shot through on Hay.
That sent things to a shootout, where Lynden Lakovic would be the only goal scorer for the Warriors while Smith and Cayden Lindstrom scored for Medicine Hat.
Unger capped his night with 28 saves, including five in overtime, while Hay ended up with 34 saves on the night.
Depending on results in the rest of the league on Saturday night, the Warriors could find themselves with a chance to close within a single point of first place on Tuesday when they host the Saskatoon Blades.
“There have been games where we’ve played well defensively but couldn’t capitalize and score goals like tonight, and there have been some other nights where we score lots of goals but don’t check tight enough and give up too many,” O’Leary said. It’s putting those things together on a consistent basis that will be the end goal here… Through 20 games, we’re certainly not satisfied where we’re at, we know we have better, but we’re in the mix in a tight division and conference.”
