Heading into Saturday night’s Western Hockey League contest with the Calgary Hitmen, Moose Jaw Warriors forward Brayden Yager found himself on a bit of a scoring schneid,
With no goals in his last five games, it was one of Yager’s longest droughts of the season.
Sixty minutes later, problem solved.
The 16-year-old rookie scored a pair of second-period goals and added an empty netter for his second career hat trick as the Warriors picked up a 4-1 victory at Mosaic Place.
“I think it's just getting back to the basics,” Yager said of getting back on track. “Sometimes you over-complicate things and that's when you go a little bit of stretch where you don’t score. So just get back to the basics and have fun and it'll actually happen for you.”
The Warriors improved to 27-17-3-1 with the victory and once again have points in nine of their last 10 games. Moose Jaw is now three points back of Red Deer for third place in the Eastern Conference and four points up on Saskatoon.
Riley Fiddler-Schultz got the Hitmen on the board first, but it was Sean Tschigerl who made the play with a slick backhand pass out of the corner that found its way through traffic and right onto Fiddler-Schultz’s stick. A quick shot along the ice to the right corner later and Calgary had a 1-0 lead.
That would be the only goal of the opening stanza, but it wouldn’t take long into the second period for the Warriors to respond.
Yager finished off a sustained run of pressure in the Calgary zone with his first goal of the night at 3:23, picking the puck at the side of the net and knocking a shot home.
Ryder Korczak then gave the Warriors the lead three minutes later when Jagger Firkus forced a turnover in the Calgary zone and fed the puck down to Denton Mateychuk in the corner, who then found Korczak all alone in the slot for a one-timer blast that Calgary netminder Ethan Beunaventura could only get a piece of.
Yager struck again four minutes after that marker, and it was just the right place at the right time. A shot by Firkus rebounded right to the 16-year-old standout and he had all the time in the world for a perfect shot top corner blocker side past a completely screened Beunaventura.
The assist gave Firkus three on the night and saw his season point total improve to 27 goals and 59 points, good enough for sixth overall in the WHL for the 2022 National Hockey League draft prospect.
“I think our line played pretty well tonight, we had chances almost every shift,” said Yager, who took the ice with regular linemate Firkus and Riley Niven. “So I think they're bound to go in and fortunately they did tonight.”
The score remained 3-1 until three minutes remained in the contest, with the Warriors on the penalty kill and Calgary’s netminder pulled for the 6-on-4.
And who’s stick would the puck find on a turnover in the zone?
Yager, of course, and a quick flick of the stick later he’d have his second hat trick and 25th goal of the season.
Seeing his team able to respond to a relatively lackluster first period was as positive in Yager’s eyes.
“It was good to see a little bit of pushback from us obviously, we're gonna fight a full 60 minutes even if we have a tough start,” he said. “I thought we battled back pretty hard tonight and we got the job done even at the end there. We had a little stretch with a couple of penalties but we were able to bear down and finish it off.”
Jackson Unger had a solid start in goal but wasn’t as heavily tested as his counterpart at the other end of the ice. He’d finish with 31 saves, while Buenaventura had 24 stops on the night.
The Warriors are back on the ice on Tuesday, Feb. 15 when they travel to Lethbridge to face the Hurricanes.
