Case in point this past weekend, as they picked up a two-game sweep over the Battlefords Stars with a 3-1 win on Saturday and 5-1 win Sunday in a pair of contests at Mosaic Place.
“It was a good confidence-booster for us to come out and play two solid games,” said Warriors head coach Trevor Weisgerber. “We have a tough schedule coming ahead here, so it’s good to have that confidence now. We’ll give the guys a couple days off here for Thanksgiving and then we’ll get right back at ‘er on Wednesday.”
Neither game featured what one would call a defensive clinic – the two teams combined for 68 shots in the first game, 40 of those from Battlefords, and a further 88 shots in the rematch, where the Warriors put 17 on net each period for a total of 51.
“We’ve actually been working on it a lot here in the last week to 10 days,” Weisgerber said. “We needed to be a little more creative and have our D jumping in and creating that stuff and making more plays. So it’s good that something we worked on a lot came over into the game.”
Team captain Atley Calvert scored twice and added an assist in Sunday’s contest, which saw the Warriors hold period leads of 2-1 and 3-1. Davis Fry also picked up pair of goals and a helper, while Wyatt Wilson added their other marker and an assist for good measure. Connor McGrath and Lucius Schmidt had two assists each.
Nic Steciuk had Battlefords lone goal.
Things were a touch closer on Saturday, as Parker Douglas and Evan Callaghan had first period goals before Carson Dobson replied for the Stars in the second. Calvert had an empty net goal to close out scoring.
Chase Coward got the win in goal in the first game, Dylan Ersnt in game two. Both goaltenders were solid in face of a decent amount of shots both nights.
“Ideally we’d like to keep that below 30,” Weisgerber said. “Yesterday we had some penalty trouble again, so they got a lot of their opportunities on the power play and tonight, I didn’t realize we’d given up that many. It seemed like we had quite a bit of the play in their end. It’s nice that our goaltenders are there to be solid for us.”
The Warriors improved to 3-2-0-0 with the wins and sit tied for seventh with the Notre Dame Hounds. Battlefords fell to 2-4-2-0 and also have six points.
Moose Jaw returns to action on Thursday when they host the Swift Current Legionnaires. Game time is 7 p.m. at Mosaic Place.
