MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- Throughout their struggles in the first part of the Western Hockey League season, the Moose Jaw Warriors have found themselves in the hunt in far more games than they’ve been blown out.
And in more than a few cases, they’ve put together late-game comebacks that have fallen just short.
Saturday was another one of those nights, as the Warriors fell behind 6-2 midway through the third period against the Tri-City Americans but rallied for three goals in the final 8:38 before dropping a 7-5 decision at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
The Warriors are now 5-14-3-1 on the campaign and sit in 11th in the Eastern Conference. Tri-City -- who found themselves on a 12-game winning streak before heading out on their East Division road swing -- are now 17-5-1 and in third in the Western Conference.
The loss was another what-if for Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary, who would like to see his team take a more consistent approach to their game.
“I think we're learning the importance of each and every shift,” he said. “I know we have a lot of guys that are playing more minutes than they have in the past, but with that opportunity comes the responsibility, that you need to be ready to go each and every shift. You can't have shifts off, and when you do bad things can happen in an awful hurry.
“That being said, I’m really proud of the fact that we didn't stop. It would have been real easy, down four goals, to get a little bit complacent and just ride out the rest of the night. But we continued to play hard, we followed the structure, and we gave ourselves a chance.”
The Warriors opened scoring with 5:30 to play in the first period when Rilen Kovacevic scored his fourth goal in three games, but the lead wouldn’t last the frame.
Brandon Whynott replied for the Americans with 25 seconds to play in the period, with his goal coming on the heels of an excellent scoring chance for the Warriors on the other end of the ice.
Finding that finish in those situations is something the team will need to develop to regain their winning ways, O’Leary said.
“That's the difference between being up 2-0 or tied 1-1,” he continued. “It's these moments in the game that we need to be ready and prepared, whether it's to check, whether it's to manage a puck, we have to be ready for those individual moments within the game.”
Carter MacAdams gave Tri-City a 2-1 lead 33 seconds into the second period, but Warriors captain Brayden Yager scored his 11th of the season at the 12:10 mark to tie the game 2-2.
The Americans went on a tear from there.
Max Curran, Gavin Garland, Austin Zemlak and Jordan Gavin all scored from the 12:41 mark of the second through the 3:48 mark of the third, with the latter two goals coming only eight seconds apart.
It looked like that could be the night for Moose Jaw, but Lynden Lakovic started the Warriors rally with 8:09 remaining in the game, Aaron Sawatzky continued it with his first WHL goal with 1:49 remaining and Connor Schmidt made it a one-goal game with 31 seconds to play.
The Warriors wouldn’t get their miracle, though, and MacAdams finished off scoring with an empty netter with five seconds to play.
Seeing his team in close games most nights is a positive in O’Leary’s eyes, especially as the younger players begin to get up to speed with the WHL game.
“I think it's an important part of the growth and the development to be in hard games, to understand the importance of each and every moment,” he said. “It's easier to teach that and understand that when you see how close the margin is for error.
“When you lose a game by one or two by the end of the night, you can see that, you know, maybe if I just did this different or if I just did this different, we may win that game. So we're in the fight. We're getting knocked down more than we're knocking them down, but you just have to keep punching here.”
Jackson Unger finished with 35 saves for Moose Jaw, while Nathan Preston had 28 stops for Tri-City.
The Warriors are back in action on Tuesday when they host the Swift Current Broncos. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
