The 5,345 faithful fans at the Scotiabank Saddledome Friday night didn’t have a whole lot to cheer about through the first 40 minutes, as their third tilt of the season with the Moose Jaw Warriors seemed destined for blowoutsville.
The crowd was brought to their feet during the second intermission when Swift Current Broncos sniper Tyler Steenbergen put Team Canada ahead late in the third period against Team Sweden in the World Junior Championship final. They then again cheered when footage of Hitmen defender Jake Bean receiving his gold medal was streamed on the jumbotron.
Canada’s win at the World Junior Championship sparked the crowd and brought the Hitmen to life, too.
There is no way to track puck possession or zone time yet in the Western Hockey League, and it is probably a good thing for the Hitmen’s sake that they don’t, as the Warriors basically had ownership rights to the puck in the first 40.
“Tonight was disappointing, the slow start hurt us and we weren’t ready to go,” said Jakob Stukel.
The Hitmen (12-21-5-1) took a pair of too-many men penalties in the first six minutes of action. Any penalty taken against the league’s fifth-best power play is ill-advised, but two mental mistakes such as those are almost considered sins.
Surprisingly enough, the Warriors didn’t convert on either attempt. Fresh off a 69-shot performance against the Red Deer Rebels, it was the added zone time and touches of the puck on the power play that got the Warriors (32-6-1-2) buzzing.
With the slick skating Tanner Jeannot in the box for hooking, Josh Brooks cleared a puck off the glass and down the ice. Leave it to Jayden Halbgewachs to turn a clearing attempt into a breakout pass, as he bolted down the ice, corralled the puck and blew past Nick Schneider to slide in his league-leading 42 goal.
There wasn’t much Schneider could have done on the remaining goals this evening.
Six minutes later, the Hitmen failed to clear the zone several times, as the puck was worked back down low by Dmitri Zaitsev. The puck came to Jeannot, who tried to slip a cross-crease pass back to Tristan Langan, but Jackson van de Leest broke the play up in front of his own net. Unable to react to the broken pass, Schneider slid to the other post as Jeannot had a tap-in for his 29th.
The second best team in the nation was having it’s way with a Calgary team that was skating nine rookies.
“I haven’t been in the league that long, but we have some guys that have only been in the league for a few games. We gotta help them through games like this,” said the 17-year-old Layne Toder. “I went through the same thing earlier that they’re going through and we have to help them get through the next shift.”
The red-hot Mark Kastelic got called for a slew-footing double minor 5:40 into the second frame, sending the Warriors to one of their five power plays on the evening.
Vince Loschiavo sent a dee-to-dee pass over to Zaitsev, who had all the time in the world to stroll deep into the Hitmen zone and uncork a wrister that sizzled past Schneider’s glove.
The domination didn’t stop there, as Jeannot finished off a picturesque give-and-go from Halbgewachs at the 15:17 mark in the first.
After stopping 27 pucks through two periods with two more games on the docket this weekend, Schneider was replaced to start the second period. Schneider’s goals against average this season will never be able to reflect how crucial he meant to this team.
“I thought Nick played well for us and had some big stops for us. We felt like we had to mix it up and put Army in there to get them refocused and win the period,” said Hitmen Head Coach Dallas Ferguson.
Matthew Armitage has played a fraction of the minutes Schneider has this season. Armitage was bound to get between the pipes at some point this weekend, it was just a matter of when.
Tonight marked the third-straight relief appearance Armitage has been called upon for, and he’s handled them well. He last appeared in relief on New Year’s Day against the Edmonton Oil Kings, where he stopped seven-of-eight shots.
Including tonight, the rookie netminder has played 69:25 minutes during those three relief outings and stopped 22-of-24 shots.
“He came in and stopped a couple barrages and stood tall. It’s a tough spot to come in cold like that, but he knows his role and knows that he needs to be ready,” said Ferguson. “I think he’s been pretty good at coming in like that.”
Whether it was the goaltending change or learning that their teammate won gold, the Hitmen looked completely different in the third.
Riley Stotts has been a wonderful delight since joining the Hitmen in late November.
He got the team back in the game on the power play, when Toder sucked in a pair of shot blockers with an incredible fake slapper, only to slide it over to Stotts by the faceoff circle, who wired one past the ear of the new netminder Brody Willms.
“We finally played fast and got some life, but unfortunately it was too late,” said Stukel.
Backup Adam Evanoff made his third start against the Hitmen this season, but had to be removed from the game at the 5:53 mark of the third, as a stick from a pileup in front of the net sliced his chin. He stopped all 18 shots he faced for his eighth win of the season.
The Warriors didn’t ease him into the game, as they took a pair of sloppy penalties, breathing life into the exasperated Hitmen bench.
Loschiavo briefly took the wind out of the Hitmen’s sails when he stayed with the play after getting robbed by Armitage on a rush. The Warriors kept the puck alive, as the Winnipeg native received a second chance on the Armitage and was able to tuck one past his glove.
But again, it was Stotts who was trying to will the Hitmen back in the game, as he finished off a clean entry feed from Jake Kryski by sending one past Willms up top.
“He’s a good player and he’s definitely getting rewarded right now. He’s throwing pucks on net and that’s what we got to do,” said Stukel about the Stott’s performance. “Down the road, he’s going to be a special player.”
With time winding down in regulation, Toder scored his first career WHL goal when he beat Willms down low on a shot from the point.
“It’s definitely nice to get that, it’s been a long time coming,” said Toder. “It was a nice play off the wall to get it to me and I didn’t have to do too much, I just put it past the goalie.”
Time ran out on the Hitmen with their net empty, as they couldn’t join Bean in celebrating an impressive victory against one of the best teams in the Canadian Hockey League.
With Bean capturing gold and the World Juniors officially coming to an end, the attention now shifts to the trade deadline next Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, the Warriors were involved in a trade with the Red Deer Rebels. Defenceman Collin Paradis was a late scratch as he and a second round pick in both the 2019 and 2020 WHL Bantam Draft was sent to Red Deer for 19-year-old defence man Brandon Schuldhaus and a fourth-round pick in the 2020 Draft.
As far as the Hitmen are concerned, Bean is regarded as the hottest item on the trade market and can be moved at any moment now that the tournament is over.
In seven games with Team Canada, Bean averaged 16:05 of ice time and 23 shifts per game, along with three assists. He is the seventh Canadian member of the Hitmen to win gold at the World Juniors. This season in 25 games with the Hitmen, he is third on the team with 27 points.
As for the rest of the team, they will have to regroup quickly, as they have a big divisional game tomorrow night — the second stop of a three-game set this weekend — against the Lethbridge Hurricanes (17-18-3-0) at the Enmax Centre. The Hurricanes lost 5-3 to the Vancouver Giants tonight and sit seven points in front of the Hitmen for the final divisional playoff spot.
The Hitmen will conclude this three-game set Sunday afternoon at the ‘Dome when they host the Kelowna Rockets (24-21-2-1). Puck drop is slated for 4 p.m.
