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WHL Moose Jaw Warriors

Warriors Drop Back-And-Forth Game to Pats in OT

January 2, 2022 - Western Hockey League (WHL)
Moose Jaw Warriors News Release


It was a wild start to 2022 for the Moose Jaw Warriors in Regina.

The Warriors dropped a 7-6 overtime game against the rival Pats on New Year's Day at the Brandt Centre.

"We started off a little bit weaker early, but as the game moved on, we started playing our game, we fought back and we found a way to come back and that's all we can do," Warriors forward Tate Schofer said after the game.

After falling behind early in the game, the Warriors found their stride and traded ten goals with the Pats over the final two periods.

The overtime loss gives the Warriors points in four straight games and puts them into a tie for fourth place in the Eastern Conference.

"Anytime you're scoring that many goals between two teams, obviously you'd like to clean some things up, but to get a point, it's a good weekend still," Warriors assistant coach Scott King said.

Schofer scored his first career WHL goal in his hometown in the loss.

"It felt good, first day into the new year, it's something that was very important to me and especially with a lot of friends and family being here, I couldn't ask for anything more," Schofer said.

Robert Baco, Majid Kaddoura and Matthew Gallant posted a goal and two points each for the Warriors, while Atley Calvert and Thomas Tien finished with two assists each.

2021 first round pick Marek Howell also had an assist in his WHL debut with the Warriors.

The game didn't start how the Warriors had hoped, they received an early break when Pats defenceman Stanislav Svozil was called for a five-minute major and game misconduct for interference after a high hit on Riley Niven.

It was the Pats that capitalized on the man advantage, picking up shorthanded goals from Logan Nijhoff and Cole Dubinsky just 19 seconds apart to take an early 2-0 lead.

"It's always deflating when something like that happens, but we're a team that bounces back and we bounced back," Schofer said.

The Warriors found momentum as the period rolled on and eventually broke through with just over five minutes left in the frame, as Gallant fired a wrist shot top shelf for his third of the season.

The second was back-and-forth with five goals in total, including three for the Warriors.

It started with Jagger Firkus ripping home his team-leading 20th of the season just 4:58 into the period to tie the game at 2-2.

Connor Bedard struck back for the Pats just past the midway point of the frame, but Moose Jaw answered when Max Wanner showed off his hands for his second of the year just 45 seconds later.

Bedard put the Pats back in front only 29 seconds after that, making it 4-3 with 7:16 left in the second.

The Warriors weren't done, however, as Kaddoura would score his first in a Warriors' uniform with a blast from the point with under three minutes to play in the frame.

Bedard scored his hat trick goal just 1:55 into the third period to put the Pats back in front 5-4.

The Warriors were able to respond once again as Schofer went end-to-end to score his first career goal just over three minutes later.

Later in the frame, the Pats went on a 5-on-3 power play and capitalized when Drew Englot buried a rebound to make it a 6-5 game.

On the same power play, Josh Hoekstra made a great play to move the puck out of the zone to Robert Baco, who finished off the rush with a shorthanded goal for his fifth of the season.

That sent the game to overtime where Carl Tetachuk robbed Bedard on a breakaway in the early moments of the extra frame.

Bedard would get the last laugh though, scoring his fourth of the game to win it for Regina.

Tetachuk ended up making 43 saves as the Warriors were outshot 50-25 in the loss.

The Warriors were 1-for-3 on the power play, while they went 5-for-6 on the penalty kill.

The Warriors are now off until Friday when they will travel to Lethbridge to take on the Hurricanes to open a two-game Alberta road trip. Moose Jaw will also head into Medicine Hat next Saturday.

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Western Hockey League Stories from January 2, 2022


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