On Saturday afternoon against the Swift Current Broncos the shoe was most definitely on the other foot.
The Warriors would take advantage of an early five minute major and would finish the contest 4-for-8 on the power play as they rolled to a 5-1 victory in the Western Hockey League East Division hub at the Brandt Centre in Regina.
The win was the first for the Warriors without going into overtime and saw the club improve to 4-1-0-0 on the season, good enough for first place in the division.
“I know we’ve had some nailbiters here and certainly we’ll take a win any way we can, but for sure, it was good to take care of business in 60 minutes here tonight,” said Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary. “I still don’t think it was our best game, but we took the chances we had and capitalized. So we’ll certainly never turn down a win.”
It also wasn’t bad to see his crew on the right side of a tough penalty situation.
“That’s a step in the right direction, no 5-on-3 to kill, and that gave us another chance for sure,” O’Leary said of the team’s impressive special teams showing. “Scott King has done a heck of a job with our power play, I think, the guys feel confident and they enjoy playing together and they did a great job tonight. Swift took some penalties there, we earned the power plays and we did a good job making sure we took care of business. It’s nice to see it rewarded here tonight.”
Warriors captain Daemon Hunt had one of the best offensive showings of his WHL career, scoring twice and finishing with four points, while Eric Alarie, Tate Popple and Cory King all had single markers. Ryder Korczak picked up three assists and moved into the top-10 in WHL scoring with a goal and eight points.
Seeing his team get off to such a solid start to the season after a trying campaign last year has done nothing but help the team’s confidence, said Hunt, who is now second in defenceman scoring in the league with four goals and seven points
“Last year, everyone knows it was a tough year, but we learned from it, we grew from it and got older and it’s really nice to be winning games right now,” he said. “I think we’re feeling really good about ourselves, but we have to reset every single day. It’s a busy schedule and we’re going to have to be ready.”
In three of their previous four games, the Warriors had been hit with back-to-back penalties early in the contests and had to kill off lengthy two-man penalties. This time, it was Swift Current’s Josh Davies who was hit with a five-minute major for kneeing Cole Jordan only 5:18 into the first.
Alarie would make the Broncos pay for the hit with three minutes gone on the power play, taking a feed from Korczak from behind the net and beating Broncos goaltender Isaac Poulter low glove side.
Popple was the beneficiary of some good puck luck 1:48 later, as after being stopped on a partial breakaway, Broncos defenceman Eric Houk gloved the puck into the net to give the Warriors a 2-0 edge.
Cohnor Saleski would get one back for Swift Current 3:24 into the second period, with his shot from the left faceoff circle beating Warriors goaltender Boston Bilous five-hole.
The Warriors would get that back 12:15 into the second period as King came off the bench, went straight to the net, took a feed in the slot from Cade Hayes and rifled a shot just under Poulter’s blocker.
The Broncos struggles with discipline came to a head in the third, as they took three straight minor penalties in the span of two minutes with 10 minutes remaining, giving the Warriors a prolonged two-man advantage.
Hunt extended his team’s lead to 4-1 with his second of the season and third point of the game with 8:51 to play and then added his second marker of the contest 1:03 later while still on the two-man power play.
Bilous had a solid bounce-back game after giving up four goals in the first period in his previous appearance against the Regina Pats, stopping 16 of 17 shots he faced. Poulter had 31 saves for Swift Current.
The Warriors are back in action on Sunday when they take on the Saskatoon Blades. Puck drop is 8 p.m.
