MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- The Moose Jaw Warriors have had some impressive goaltending debuts throughout their time in the Western Hockey League, but few can compare to what Josh Banini put together on Friday night against the Everett Silvertips.
The rookie netminder was absolutely stellar in his first-ever WHL start, facing a total of 50 shots and turning in a spectacular performance in the third period as the Warriors went on to a 4-2 win at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
It’s hard to overstate just how good Banini was in the final frame, too. Everett completely tilted the ice in their favour, and the Edmonton product was forced to make a host of incredible saves to keep the Warriors in the game, something he was able to do thanks to 16 stops over the final 20 minutes.
“He just competed, and that kind of work ethic is contagious,” said Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary. “You see the work he’s put in since he’s come to Moose Jaw, you can see why he gets a win like he did tonight. He deserves it. When you put the work in and compete like he did, you just find a way to do it.”
Banini’s debut was delayed due to a broken collarbone he sustained after being hit by a puck in the lead-up to training camp. He spent the entire time from then up to Friday’s contest recovering and preparing, and it’s safe to say things turned out pretty well.
“I was super nervous coming in and there were a lot doubts, but I always believe in myself,” Banini said. “I’ve had different injuries I’ve come back from and this one was no different.”
It didn’t take the Silvertips long to put the former Edmonton Jr. Oilers standout to the test. Banini would face a total of 24 shots in the first period and was only beaten once when Jesse Heslop scored on the power play midway through the frame.
The Warriors’ Rilen Kovacevic would get that one back before the period was out, though, and the teams would go into the break tied 1-1 despite the Silvertips’ dominance.
“I had a lot of shots through traffic and it was kind of hard to get into it, but somehow I found my game and it just kept going,” Banini said, adding that keeping a relaxed frame of mind was key. “It’s important to always have a smile on my face, and my mom says if you’re not having fun there’s no point in playing… I’ll skate to the corner and say hi to some of the fans and things like that, not get too serious because that’s when you get tight and it’s hard to react when you’re tight.”
Brayden Yager gave the Warriors the lead with four minutes to play in the second, but Heslop would pick up his second of the game with two minutes remaining to send things into the third all tied up.
The final frame saw Everett turn in as dominant a period as there’s been for a visiting team at the Events Centre in quite some time, but Lynden Lakovic would give the Warriros the lead 6:11 into the period and then add an empty net goal with 22 seconds to play to secure the win.
All told, the Silvertips would outshoot Moose Jaw 50-21.
“We don’t have to apologize one bit for that win,” O’Leary said. “There’s 68 games in a year and they’re not always going to be pretty, and even in the early going here there have been points that we probably deserve when we played a bit better and we didn’t come away with those points.
“Sometimes you have games like this where you don’t play your best up front and you have one guy who decides it’s going to be a little bit different and that’s what Josh did tonight.”
Jesse Sanche wasn’t as busy as Banini in the Everett net but was solid in his own right with a handful of big stops in the first and second periods.
Lakovic’s two goals give him four on the season, and his 10 points in seven games are good enough for a tie for eighth in WHL scoring. Yager added an assist to his goal and now has four goals and seven points in three games for the highest points-per-game in the WHL at this point.
The Warriors are back in action on Saturday night when they travel to Saskatoon for their first meeting with the Blades since their epic Eastern Conference Final series last season. Game time is 7 p.m. from the SaskTel Centre.
