Moose Jaw Warriors defenceman Connor Schmidt and Team Canada Red are off to the quarter-finals at the World U17 Hockey Challenge.
And they’ve gone through all sorts of intense hockey just to get to this point.
Canada Red posted a 3-2 record through the round robin at the six-team event in Charlottetown, P.E.I., winning two of those contests in overtime. As a result, they landed in third place in the preliminary round and will face Canada White in the quarter-final on Thursday night.
Schmidt -- the Warriors first-round pick in the 2021 WHL Prospects Draft -- has a single assist in the tournament, and it came at a pretty important time. Facing the United States in their final round-robin game on Tuesday night, Schmidt drew the second assist on Ryan Roobroeck’s go-ahead goal 1:34 into the third period. The lead would only last 16 seconds, though, as the U.S. scored on the ensuing shift to tie things back up.
That set the stage for overtime, where Medicine Hat Tigers standout Gavin McKenna continued his stellar tournament showing by scoring the overtime winner 4:19 into the extra frame.
It was the second extra-time victory of the tournament for Canada Red after they opened with a 3-2 shootout win over Finland to open the event back on Nov. 2.
Canada Red followed that contest with a 4-3 victory over Canada White the next night before falling 4-0 to Czechia and dropping an 8-5 decision to Sweden in their other preliminary round games.
The rematch with Canada White (3-2) is set for 5 p.m. Thursday Moose Jaw time and will be streamed on www.hockeycanada.ca.
The other quarter-final will see Czechia (2-3) take on Finland (2-3). The U.S. (3-0-2) and Sweden (3-1-1) received first-round playoff byes and automatically advance to the semifinals on Friday. The gold and bronze medal games take place on Saturday afternoon.
Schmidt played 10 games for the Warriors prior to leaving for Worlds and has a single goal on his ledger thus far.
The Warriors are back in action on Thursday night when they host the Brandon Wheat Kings. Game time is 7 p.m. at the Moose Jaw Events Centre.
