Unfortunately for the local squad, that didn’t happen
There might have been fewer goals scored, but Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary was less than pleased with what he saw from his troops at the Brandt Centre in Regina, as the Wheat Kings would score three goals in the second period and go on to an 4-1 win.
It was a far cry from their 8-2 and 8-3 losses in their previous meetings -- both of which saw Brandon pour in four goals in the opening frame before cruising to the easy win -- but that made little difference in O’Leary’s eyes outside of a solid effort from goaltender Brett Mirwald.
“Brett was a real bright spot I think, but otherwise it was a pretty grim night,” O’Leary said. “I don’t think we had many guys at all who were truly engaged and doing what it takes to win games in this league and it’s too bad it was a wasted effort from Brett that we couldn’t give him more to work with. We were playing the best team in here, but the goal was to make it real difficult on them, make them go 200 feet to score goals, but too many times we made it too easy on them to get good looks. I wasn’t real impressed with the effort and compete tonight.”
Brandon finds themselves battling for first place with Saskatoon and is one of the older teams in the division, but O’Leary refused to use that as any kind of excuse. Not when things looked like they did Saturday.
“I don’t remember winning more than two or three races to pucks or second-effort battles for pucks, it just wasn’t good enough,” O’Leary said. “That’s on us, that’s certainly nothing to do with age, that’s for sure.”
The Wheat Kings dominated play much of the first period -- outshooting the Warriors 15-4 in the process, with only Mirwald preventing a repeat of their previous meetings -- but it was Moose Jaw who would strike first.
Brad Ginnell scored his second of the season, tipping a Denton Mateychuk shot top shelf glove side past Ethan Kruger with 45 seconds left in the period.
The lead wouldn’t last the frame, though, as Brandon’s Jake Chaisson finished off a two-on-one with Ben McCartney with one second left, sending the two teams to the room tied 1-1.
McCartney then gave the Wheat Kings the lead three minutes into second, going in on a breakaway off a breakout pass from Jake Chaisson and roofing a backhand past Brett Mirwald.
Brandon extended their lead to 3-1 with 5:28 remaining in the period, as Lynden McCallum one-timed a short pass from Braden Schneider high through traffic and finding the top shelf.
The Wheat Kings then scored their sixth shorthanded goal of the season with 2:05 remaining in the period as Ridly Greig finished off a give-and-go with Ben McCartney. Greig almost scored his second shorthanded goal on the same power play seconds later, going in on a breakaway, but Mirwald was able to make the save.
There would be no scoring in the third period, and Brandon would go on to the three-goal win.
Mirwald stopped 34 shots in the loss, while Kruger had 20 saves.
The loss was the fourth straight for the Warriors, who fell to 7-11-1-0 on the season and now have five games remaining on their schedule
Moose Jaw is back in action on Monday night when they take on the Prince Albert Raiders in their final meeting of the season. It’s a game where O’Leary will be looking for a serious bounce back.
“Monday can’t come soon enough, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ll get a good practice in tomorrow and make sure we’re on top of our work habits and the details of our game, and with the effort and compete, we’ll be much better Monday.”
Game time is 8 p.m.
