MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- The Moose Jaw Warriors knew they needed to be a better team than they were in Game 1 of the Western Hockey League Eastern Conference semifinal, and to say the least, that’s exactly what happened.
Warriors captain Denton Mateychuk had a goal and six points to take over the WHL playoff scoring lead, Brayden Yager had a hat trick and the Warriors rolled to a 7-2 victory over the Swift Current Broncos in Game 2 at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
It was a far cry from the previous night, when despite a ton of chances, the Warriors would drop a 7-2 decision to the Broncos.
To put it simply, oh what a difference a day makes.
“I loved the response tonight, that’s huge,” said Mateychuk, who now has three goals and 14 points through six playoff games. “Especially in a series like this, they took it to us yesterday and we brought a different kind of energy tonight and that’s great.”
While the Warriors didn’t get off to the greatest of starts on Saturday night, goaltender Jackson Unger was on his game. He only faced 11 shots in the opening frame, but had to make a host of huge saves as the Warriors looked to gain their footing.
Then came the second period, and six goals later, things were pretty much in hand.
“The first period was on our goaltender,” Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary said with emphasis. “Making the saves that he did allowed us to find our game a little bit, and it could have gone a different way if he doesn’t make those saves. For our guys, they found the recipe, they did what they do well getting pucks behind the D and winning races to the puck.
Then the biggest difference from last night to tonight was we had two around the puck in the offensive zone and we were able to come up with possession.”
With Mateychuk setting things up, Yager was more than happy to play finisher, with his hat trick goal at 6:01 of the second bringing a rain of ball caps and even a sombrero onto the ice.
“The whole message this morning from our coaches was to bounce back, and that’s how things went tonight,” Yager said when asked about the rebound. “Especially in the first period last game, we had a couple of chances to get back in the game but just couldn’t capitalize, but tonight I thought we did a good job of getting pucks to the net and finishing them off.”
Mateychuk pointed to Yager’s first goal of the game late in the first period as a key to getting things going.
“I think we just built off of Yag’s shorthanded goal in the first, we knew we had a good period and could do better,” he said. “So we made the adjustments and took it to them in the second… We were snakebitten last night with the chances we had, so to see them go in tonight is a great sign.”
The Warriors were bolstered by the return of Matthew Savoie after the Buffalo Sabres prospect missed Game 1, and his presence we felt beyond his offensive output -- which happened to continue at a two-point-a-game pace with a pair of assists.
“He adds so much depth to our team,” Yager said.”If you have Brayden Schuurman as your third-line centre, you’re in pretty good hands. Obviously, he helps so much on the power play, he’s a pretty special player and any time you have a player like that it’s going to make a difference.”
Now, it’s time to look ahead to Game 3 in Swift Current, which will hit the ice at the iPlex on Tuesday night.
“First and foremost we get some rest and take advantage of Sunday and Monday, review what went well and what we can clean up,” O’Leary said. “We weren’t a perfect team, there are still some things we want to get better at, but we feel good about a lot of our game now and there’s a lot we have to emulate.”
