The Moose Jaw Winmar Warriors have been going through one of those strange stretches where you just don’t know what’s going to happen from night to night.
Win a game, lose a couple, win three, lose two, and so on.
And it doesn’t matter the calibre of their opponent, either -- one day they’re taking points off of the first-place Saskatoon Blazers, the next losing to the last-place Tisdale Trojans.
This past weekend offered yet another example in that direction, as the Warriors dropped a 2-0 decision to the Regina Pat Canadians on Saturday night before rebounding with a 7-4 win over the Notre Dame Hounds less than a day later.
In a word, it comes down to consistency. And it’s something the Warriors continue to search for now that they’ve passed the midpoint of the season.
“Sometimes it’s tough, and with this group it seems like we’re getting the hang of it and then we have a tough one,” said Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber after the win over the Hounds. “Last night, we were happy with our effort, but we just have to capitalize on our chances. The consistency thing definitely has to be there. We’re just over halfway through the season now, so we have to get on a roll here and put some wins together and move up in the standings.”
In Regina, Koen Senft scored for the Pat Canadians in the first period, Noah Asmundson in the second, and that would be it for the offence on the night.
John Macpherson stopped all 27 shots he faced for the shutout, while Ryan Hicks turned in a solid game of his own with 30 saves.
Around 15 hours after that contest ended, it was a different story.
Moose Jaw scored four goals in the second period, building a 6-2 lead before settling for their three-goal win.
Liam Fitzpatrick had a pair of goals and three points on the night to move up to sixth in league scoring, while Austin Woodley, Jake Briltz, Wyatt LaCoste, Grady Hoffman and Connor Miller had their other markers. Ryder Knutson picked up three assists.
“I thought for the most part we played a pretty good 60 minutes,” Weisgerber said. “We put a lot of pressure on their D and I felt as a group we competed, where last night I thought we had some guys who had a rough game or took a night off. I was really happy with our effort, it was a quick turnaround from last night to this afternoon, the guys competed and battled and obviously, it paid off.”
One positive sign was how the Warriors generated chances once they had the lead, with the third period featuring all sorts of scoring opportunities that they were able to cash in on.
“I think they were just trying to push to get back in the game, so it created some odd-man rushes for us and we capitalized on a couple of them, so it was good,” Weisgerber said. “We work on that stuff in practice, we’re trying to make plays and score some goals when we get those opportunities and at the end of the day it’s guys reading what they’re giving them and doing their job.”
Hicks had another solid game in goal, stopping 27 shots, while the Warriors had 35 shots on Mariko Bercier.
Moose Jaw is now 9-11-0-3 on the season, good enough for seventh place in the Sask Male AAA Hockey League, four points back of Prince Albert and a point up on Warman.
Next action for the Winmar Warriors is Tuesday, Dec. 13 when they travel to Saskatoon to face the Blazers.
