Because it was only two seasons ago that the Oil Kings finished in last place in the Eastern Conference – the very same year the likes of Brett Howden, Brayden Burke, Jayden Halbgewachs and Tanner Jeannot led the Warriors to a 52-win season and the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy as the WHL’s best regular season team.
The two teams took the ice for the second time in a week on Wednesday night, as the Warriors played their first game under head coach Mark O’Leary, two days after former head coach Tim Hunter was relieved of his duties.
In the end, the Warriors would drop a 7-4 decision at Mosaic Place after trailing 6-2 early in the third. A little better than the 5-0 defeat they went through last Friday in Edmonton, but not exactly what they were hoping for.
“I think we’re not happy with the result here tonight, but we talk about the process all the time and I think we did some things well,” O’Leary said. “We challenged them to get inside of home plate around our net and I think we did a pretty good job of that. We did give up a lot of shots, but where they’re coming from is more important to us… A lot of it was up top and outside of that home plate area, and I think most nights if we can limit the shots to the outside we’ll give ourselves a chance.”
Warriors goaltender Boston Bilous played his first game for the Tribe since joining the team from the Prince Albert Raiders in a trade on Tuesday and faced a ton of rubber in the early going – Edmonton outshot the Warriors 20-8 in the first period and 21-7 in the second, with the shots sitting at 35-9 midway through the game.
The scoreboard matched the flow of the contest, as Ethan McIndoe scored a pair of goals and Brendan Kuny put the Oil Kings ahead 3-0 at the 10:03 mark of the second.
Calder Anderson got the Warriors on the board three minutes later, and after Ethan Cap restored Edmonton’s three goal lead 28 seconds after that marker, Kyle Crosbie would score his first as a Warrior with 3:51 remaining in the period to send the teams into the break with the Oil Kings leading 4-2.
Warriors defenceman Max Wanner keeps his eye on the puck as Edmonton’s Jake Neighbours looks to bat it out of the air.“It obviously wasn’t the result we wanted tonight, but we saw a lot of good things out there and I think we all rallied around Mark,” Crosbie said. “It’s obviously big news losing a head coach, but Mark did a good job getting us ready and I think for the most part we answered the bell tonight.”
Dylan Guenther and Riley Sawchuk would extend Edmonton’s lead to 6-2 by the 7:49 mark of the third, but Brayden Tracey and Owen Hardy would score goals five minutes apart late in the period to get the Warriors back in striking distance.
McIndoe finished off his hat trick – in his 300th WHL game, no less – with an empty net goal with 46 seconds remaining.
The Warriors would finish with 22 shots on Edmonton’s Beck Warm, Bilous would turn aside 47 shots for Moose Jaw.
“That’s a good measuring stick for us,” O’Leary said. “Obviously we’re a long ways away from that, but they were in this position a couple of years ago. They learned how to work hard, now they’re a really skilled team that knows how to work and that’s where we want to be in a couple of years. We’ll just take it game from game, learn from tonight and be ready to go Friday.”
The Warriors fell to 11-23-2-0 and sit three points ahead of last place Swift Current in the Eastern Conference standings, five back of the Regina Pats and 17 points out of the final wild card playoff spot.
Edmonton improved to 28-7-5-2 with their fourth-straight win and are currently in first place in the WHL, three points ahead of the surging Portland Winterhawks, winners of 12 straight.
The Warriors are back in action Friday when they travel to Medicine Hat before hosting the Tigers on Saturday. Game time is 7 p.m. at Mosaic Place.
