That’s a charitable way of describing an 11-1 loss on the road.
And while things were far better on Tuesday night in their annual New Year’s Eve showdown,, the end result was still the same as Brandon would go on to take a 3-1 victory at Mosaic Place.
Former Warrior Luka Burzan scored his second of the game with 2:40 remaining in the third to break a 1-1 tie during the hard-fought back-and-forth contest.
“The last time we played Brandon, it was a bit of an anomaly, they got a lot of breaks and we just weren’t that good,” said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter of the better effort. “We’ve improved a lot since and we did a lot of good things tonight… We wanted a sense of urgency at the right times when we were managing the puck and we gave them a little bit too much momentum in the third and they finally capitalized. But we did some good things, changed some things with the way we wanted to play, but it was a tough result without question.”
Brandon product Calder Anderson scored the Warriors’ lone goal against his hometown team, with the marker also standing as the first of his Western Hockey League career.
“[Garrett Wright] had the puck, he cut across the blueline and dropped it to [Brayden Tracey] and he made a nice play to me up high and I just shot the puck,” Anderson said of the marker. “It ended up going off a couple of bodies and it went in, so that was nice to see.
“It’s definitely good to get the monkey off the back, but at the end of the day it’s a team game and we didn’t get the two points we wanted. So all we can do now is focus on the week ahead of us and get ready for the road trip ahead us here.”
Anderson’s goal came with 5:06 to play in the second period and tied the game 1-1.
Burzan opened scoring at 12:21 of the first, taking a drop pass from Ben McCartney and beating a screened Adam Evanoff with a shot high glove side.
Evanoff was all but lights out the rest of the way, turning in yet another solid showing in goal to keep the Tribe in touch. He would finish with 36 saves on the night and once again was named a game star.
Ethan Kruger got the start for Brandon and turned aside 23 shots.
Seeing the improved effort was a positive for Hunter, especially with the run of road games this weekend and in the near future.
“That’s what this is all about, gaining progress, and that’s the '02 and '03 group and now some of the '01 guys we’ve brought on for the next year or two,” Hunter said. “It’s about the future development of all those guys, learning to play the right way. We’re getting better results and better efforts from them and those guys are heading into the right direction.”
The Warriors are back in action Friday night when they travel to Edmonton to face the Eastern Conference-leading Oil Kings before taking on Red Deer on Saturday and Calgary on Sunday.
Next home action is Wednesday, Jan. 8 when they host the Oil Kings. Game time is 7 p.m. at Mosaic Place.
