Warriors Meet Best Team in WHL

Robert Thomas

Mosaic Place was the place to be on Wednesday night, as your Moose Jaw Warriors were hosting the league leading, 13-1 Prince Albert Raiders. Prince Albert is home to the league's leading point scorer, Brett Leason,  top defenceman Sergei Sapego and former Warrior Noah Gregor plus red hot goaltender and future Toronto Maple Leaf Ian Scott. 

The Warriors, on the other hand, were fresh from a hard fought victory over the Regina Pats and had been more successful in 2018 than many had predicted. 

The first period was all Raiders, more specifically it was all Carson Miller. At 9:33 Spencer Moe and Cole Fonstad set him up for his fifth of the season, then shortly after that Brayden Pachal shuffled the puck to the front of the net where Miller put home his second of the period. 

Period one ended 2-0 for the bad guys. 

The Warriors got on the board in period two when the team's two most recent acquisitions, Keenan and Kaeden Taphorn connected to cut the lead in half. The Taphorn Brothers were dealt to Moose Jaw in exchange for Nick Bowman and a draft pick. They previously played for the Kootenay Ice. 

The score didn't stay that way for much more than a minute though. Jett Woo took a needless charging penalty and that's when Carson Miller set up Kaiden Guhle for his first goal of the season, a vicious snipe from just inside the box. 

Moose Jaw flipped the script early in period three, scoring on the power play themselves and reducing the deficit to a single goal on Tristan Langan's ninth. 

In the waning moments, after a Noah Gregor game misconduct and much pressure from the Warriors, they pulled the goalie, Adam Evanoff, to get a second extra man advantage. But it was all for naught as shortly after that Brett Leason filled the empty goal for his 14th of the season. 

Warriors lose 4-2.

The Warriors will be at home on Saturday versus the Everett Silvertips.