For the Moose Jaw Warriors, that situation has become all but inevitable.
The Warriors took the ice against the Winnipeg Ice on Sunday night with leading scorer Ryder Korczak, forward Cade Hayes and defenceman Max Wanner all out with upper body injuries, along with team captain Daemon Hunt serving a one-game suspension for a check-to-the-head major on Saturday night against the Prince Albert Raiders.
That’s on top of forward Eric Alarie and defenceman Cole Jordan — who, along with Korczak, are all projected NHL Draft picks this fall — also missing games with injuries in recent contests.
Still, the Warriors have found a way to be competitive, with their WHL East Division Hub contest against the Ice a perfect example. Despite all the adversity, the team found a way to stay right with Winnipeg until the Ice were able to pull away in the third period and take a 4-1 victory.
“Right now, I’m proud of the group,” Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary said. “Tonight, we get those two goals against and I thought we just got better as the game went on. I like a lot of parts of our game right now, we’re playing the right ways and sure we’re making mistakes, but I think our response to the negative things happening had been positive.”
The key will be to keep playing the way they have as of late, doing the things that keep games close even when top players are missing, O’Leary added.
“We’re getting pucks in the right areas, but it’s just a matter of completing the pass and getting pucks across the line,” he said. “It’s a tough stretch right now, the wins aren’t coming and the loss keep coming, but I feel confident we’ll get out of this and I like the way our group is playing.”
An extra positive to the situation is the amount of ice time youngsters are getting. Rookies Jagger Firkus, Josh Hoekstra and Riley Niven all saw substantial ice time on Sunday night, offering another small step in their development.
"I look at guys like Hoekstra and Firkus, those guys, every time they're in the line-up, they seem to earn more and more ice just with the way they're progressing," O'Leary said. "That's what we're going to choose to concentrate on, the positives and the steps that those guys are taking and we'll continue to work on other guys and dragging them into the fight. But I think there are some real positives to take here."
Jakin Smallwood opened scoring for Winnipeg with a power play marker with 9:50 gone in the first, finishing off a rush by putting home a pass to the slot from Peyton Krebs.
Krebs made it 2-0 only 1:27 later, sneaking a shot home short side after a pass from behind the net and for the second straight game, Warriors goaltender Boston Bilous was pulled in the first 10 minutes in favour of Brett Mirwald.
That would be all the scoring until the Warriors made things interesting midway through the third, as Alarie took a feed out from the corner from Tate Popple and ripped a low shot from the top of the right faceoff circle past Ice goaltender Daniel Hauser.
For Popple, one of the team’s three overagers, finding a way to get past the adversity is just a matter of sticking with what works until that breakthrough finally happens.
“I think we’re going through a little bit of a rough patch right now, but we just have to stay positive and keep going, keep playing our style of game,” he said. “We’ve shown we’re a good team when we do play well and we just have to try and stay positive,”
Cole Muir would score Winnipeg’s fourth goal with just over five minutes to play, and Jackson Leppard added an empty net goal with 24 seconds remaining.
The Warriors fell to 4-5-0-0 with the loss, Winnipeg improved to 6-3-0-0.
Mirwald stopped 22 shots in his 47:27 of work, while the Warriors fired 18 shots at Hauser.
The Warriors are back in action Tuesday night when they take on the Regina Pats. Game time is 8 p.m.
