Warriors Make it Four Straight
By @moosejawwarriors_history (Instagram) @MJWarriorsFun (Twitter)
Warriors in flight - photo credit Twitter
In case you didn’t know; the Everett Silvertips are a pretty tough hockey team. They brought a 7-3 record into the Moose Jaw Events Centre on Friday night and they were looking to add to that.
Their leading scorer is a kid named Austin Roest. He already had 9 goals coming into the game. Roest’s old man, Stacy Roest was a feared sniper who used to light the Warriors up back in the late 90’s when he played for the Medicine Hat In case you didn’t know; the Everett Silvertips are a pretty tough hockey team. They brought a 7-3 record into the Moose Jaw Events Centre on Friday night and they were looking to add to that.
Their leading scorer is a kid named Austin Roest. He’s already got 9 goals. Roest’s old man, Stacy Roest, used to light the Warriors up back in the late 90’s when he played for the Medicine Hat Tigers.
Austin Roest is Everett’s Top Scorer - photo credit Twitter
Your Moose Jaw Warriors had other ideas though. They had designs on winning a fourth straight and Everett was standing in the way of that.
The game began a back-and-forth affair, with Everett slightly more aggressive, until Maximus Wanner laid out a ‘Tip with a solid & CLEAN hit. Ryan Hofer didn’t take too kindly to the hit and before you know it, he and Wanner were engaged in a bout of fisticuffs.
@flavicious on Twitter gave the “slight edge to Wanner”.
On a side note, I once played a game of pickup basketball against Wanner at Bell Park and he seemed so nice. Apparently he has no problems caving a guy’s face in though.
The first period was nearly over when Jagger Firkus broke the deadlock. Cole Jordan sent him on a breakaway and he muscled it past Silvertips keeper Braden Holt for his fifth of the year.
Not content to just roll over and die, the Silvertips battled back, and right-winger Jackson Berezowski tied it up, scoring his 9th goal of the season.
What the Silvertips didn’t know though was that the Firkus Circus was in town. Jagger Firkus knows how to finish a breakaway and after Brayden Yager sent him on another one, he put the puck out of reach on Holt’s glove side.
Jagger Firkus scored twice - photo credit Twitter
Everett continued being the aggressors but just couldn’t solve the riddle that is Connor Ungar.
At 17:54 Nathan Pilling scored his third of the campaign on a one-timer from the slot, assisted by Lucas Brenton and Ben Riche. The Warriors headed into the third period trailing badly in Shots on Goal, but winning by a pair of goals where it counted.
Nathan Pilling scored his third of the season - photo credit Twitter
Firkus scoring a pair was pretty remarkable but the real story of the game was Connor Ungar, who is making a serious case for Goaltender of the Year Award.
Ungar made save after save after save and looked super relaxed doing it.
It’s safe to say the Warriors have got a dependable pair of backstops.
In the second period alone Moose Jaw was outshot 21-8, and Everett outshot them in all three periods. Ungar made 46 saves on the night, 10 of them on defenceman Olen Zellweger.
Coming into the game he had a Save Percentage of .939. It will definitely be higher than that now but I’ll leave you to do the math.
Connor Ungar might just be the best goalie in the WHL - photo credit Twitter
Halfway through the third period tensions boiled over, for a second time, and knuckles were swinging. This time it was Tate Schofer taking on the larger Andrew Petruk.
“Let’s go to our Fight Analyst for the recap.”
Brayden Yager added an empty-netter, with .05 seconds left in regulation time to seal the deal.
The game’s three stars were Ungar, Firkus and Olen “Olen Ten” Zellweger (get it?)
Moose Jaw will be back on the ice at the Hangar Saturday night to host the Tri-City Americans
Final score: Moose Jaw 4, Everett 1
Warriors Notes:
For the second straight game Captain Denton Mateychuk is not on the ice. Other scratches for the game were Riley Niven, Thomas Tien and Lynden Lakovic