The Tisdale Trojans scored twice in the final 1:11 to tie the game 4-4 before the Warriors were able to take a 5-4 overtime victory during the Warman Showcase season-opening tournament.
“Obviously we don’t want to be giving up two-goal leads late in games, but we can definitely learn from it,” said Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber. “We have some good video we can go over today and tonight and show them tomorrow, but all in all it was a good game.”
Parker Jasper scored the game-winning goal with 1:19 remaining in overtime, but all in all, the contest shouldn’t have reached that point: Kirk Mullen’s goal with 1:28 to play put the Warriors ahead 4-2 and looked to all but lock down the victory.
Tisdale’s Mario Fortier would score only 17 seconds later, though, before Kalen Ukrainetz tied the game with 41 seconds on the clock.
Until that point, the Warriors had turned in an impressive showing, with Connor McGrath scoring a pair of shorthanded goals in the second period to go along with a marker from Sam Boldt. Caelan Fitzpatrick and Atley Calvert each had two assists.
“We played really good all game,” Weisgerber said. “Our penalty kill was really good, but it needed to be because we took quite a few penalties. But our killers did a really good job and we played really well five-on-five, we did a good job of taking away time and space and created lots off turnovers in the neutral zone. So it was really good.’
Tisdale would, in fact, finish 0-for-9 on the power play, while the Warriors were 0-for-3.
Chase Coward made 25 saves to earn the win, Hunter Lolacher stopped 26 for Tisdale.
Former Prairie Hockey Academy Midget Varsity standout Noah Wills scored the Trojans’ other goal.
The contest marked the regular-season debut for the entire Warriors line-up with the exception of lone returnee Ben Wourm-Rowe – making the victory all the more impressive.
“It’s early and we’ll be learning for awhile here,” Weisgerber said. “But as far as the structure and playing, we were really happy with our effort. We played a physical game, the guys played really well overall and we have no major complaints. So we’ll go over some video and learn from the end of the game and go from there.”
The Warriors close out their appearance at the Showcase on Saturday when they take on the Saskatoon Blazers. Game time is 8 p.m.
