With the way things are going for the Winmar Warriors at the moment, it’s safe to say they wish the Sask Male AAA Hockey League season was just a little bit longer.
Because if they had just a few more games and a few more wins under their belt, home-ice advantage in the playoffs wouldn’t be out of the question -- an amazing turn of events for a team that was sitting as many as five games below .500 this season.
Instead, the Warriors are one of the hottest teams in the league, with their 4-0 win over the Notre Dame Hounds at the Moose Jaw Events Centre on Wednesday night extending their winning streak to six games and giving the local crew victories in 10 of their last 11.
The Warriors are now 21-16-0-4 on the campaign and have moved into a tie for sixth place with Notre Dame, one point back of fifth-place Warman, with two games remaining in the regular season.
“We’ve been playing good hockey pretty much since Christmas here and it’s a good time to be doing it, now we just want to keep the ball rolling here,” said Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber. “We’re still in a fight here to see where we’re going to finish heading into the playoffs, but we’re pretty happy with how we’re playing right now.”
The Warriors had little difficulty on Wednesday night, as despite the Hounds playing a penalty-free game, Moose Jaw was in control from the start.
Liam Fitzpatrick scored only 11 seconds into the proceedings, Grady Hoffman made it 2-0 after the first period, Jake Britlz scored the lone goal in the second period and Dylan Duzan finished things off with the lone goal in the third.
Ryan Bain claimed Moose Jaw’s game star in the win, and for good reason. He’d turn aside all 37 shots he faced on the night, recording the first shutout of the season for Moose Jaw.
“We played good defence and in the neutral zone we didn’t give up a lot, there were a few times when Bain made huge saves on a couple breakdowns, but other than that things were to the outside and he was making the saves when we needed,” Weisgerber said. “So it was really good.”
The game was a bit of a departure from the kind of success the Warriors have been having -- the majority of their wins have come out of close results, with one or two goals deciding most of their games as of late.
“I think it just shows the character of our guys,” Weisgerber said. “We could have packed it in when we were 10-15 or whatever, but we’ve always believed if we play the game the right way, things would come, and the guys have done a great job of it.”
That plays into their winning streak in general. The Warriors have looked like a completely different team throughout their run, and it’s just been a matter of figuring things out in Weisgerber’s assessment.
“The guys have bought in, and our goaltending has been really good in the second half, which has been a big part of it,” he said. “All in all, it’s just taking away that time and space and getting timely goals, where in the first half we struggled to score and struggled to keep the puck out of our net. Now they’ve just turned around all together.”
The key going forward will be to keep things rolling, especially when the playoffs begin in a couple of weeks’ time.
“You just want to keep playing well, and we’ve been playing playoff hockey here for the last five or six weeks,” Weisgerber said. “We were in a dogfight just to get into the playoffs and now that we’ve put 10 of our last 11 together, you can’t ask for much better than that. It’s good to be playing well this time of the season and going into the playoffs with lots of confidence.”
The Warriors have three games remaining on their regular season schedule, all on the road. They take on Yorkton on Saturday and Regina Sunday before having a week off and closing out their pre-playoffs campaign on Friday, Feb. 24 in Regina.
