By Matthew Gourlie
It wasn’t a Picasso, but the Moose Jaw Warriors and Prince Albert Raiders got what they needed out of Tuesday’s game.
The Warriors’ 2-1 shootout victory clinched them first place in the East Division and the franchise’s first Scott Munro Memorial Trophy as the Western Hockey League’s regular season champions.
For their part, the Raiders clinched a playoff berth in the second period thanks to Brandon’s 5-3 win over Saskatoon, but they kept their hopes of catch Brandon alive by picking up a point.
“There’s four banners in the rafters and we just added two more — but we still want to add another here. That’s our goal,” said Warriors head coach Tim Hunter after the Warriors won their fourth East Division pennant. “It’s a great accomplishment for our organization from top to bottom, whether it’s the scouts, the front office, the trainers, the coaches, the players, it’s a great accomplishment. We’re really thrilled and proud of it.”
Prince Albert’s Nikita Krivokrasov caught Kale Clague pinching and scored on a breakaway 3:11 into the game. Moose Jaw’s Vince Loschiavo replied 44 seconds later on the Warriors’ first shot of the game to net his third goal in the last two games.
Ian Scott stopped the next 36 shots he faced for the Raiders and Brody Willms had a superb bounce-back performance. Willms made 27 saves and denied Regan Nagy and Parker Kelly in the shootout. Brett Howden and Jayden Halbgewachs each scored in the shootout to give the Warriors their first shootout win of the season.
“It’s good to push back against P.A., they’ve won a couple against us in this last little while,” Willms said. “You don’t want to back into clinching the top spot, you want do it with authority and win and enjoy it, so it was good to get the win tonight.”
Willms wasn’t busy early, but he had some tricky saves to make in the third period and in overtime. With the win he broke Thomas Heemskerk’s team record for most wins in a season with his 37th of the year.
“I thought that was one of Willms’ best efforts so far this year,” Hunter said. “It was a great challenge for him. There were some great scoring chances late in the game.”
The Warriors were without injured defencemen Dmitri Zaitsev and Brandon Schuldhaus who are officially listed as day-to-day. Brayden Burke missed his fifth consecutive game due to injury and fellow forward Barrett Sheen served the second game of a four-game suspension.
The news got worse for the Warriors who lost defencemen Jett Woo in the first period and Clague early in the third period.
“Those guys just had nagging little things, They’re not going to be long term. So we’re not worried about that,” Hunter said of Woo and Clague. “That’s what’s gone on this year right from the get-go. We were without Josh Brook, and then Jett Woo and then we lose Zaitsev. We’ve had to have guys fill in — Daemon Hunt, Matt Sanders came in and played. We’ve been resilient that way and it’s been a hallmark of our team: the next guy up does the job. We have a lot of depth and a lot character guys in this organization who can do that.”
The Raiders best chance to win came on a 51-seconds five-on-three power play in the third period with defencemen Brook and Matthew Benson in the penalty box. With no other options, the Warriors turned to Oleg Sosunov and 2001-born call-up Matt Sanders to kill it off.
Sosunov logged a ton of minutes and had a said the key down to four defencemen for the second time in the last three games was to keep it simple and focus on defence first.
“I was very tired, but when you are on the ice you don’t care about it, you just try to do your job,” Sosunov said. “Everyone is excited (about clinching first), but what we have now is just a step for the Memorial Cup. We have to keep going.”
While the Raiders’ nine game winning streak was snapped, they still have points in 10 straight and are full of confidence heading into the post-season and a possible first round match-up with the Warriors.
“All streaks come to an end, but we’re still undefeated in regulation in 10,” said Raiders captain Curtis Miske. “We’re grabbing points from everyone we can and I thought we gave it a pretty good effort out there.
“Everybody is chipping in and we have belief. We were all determined to make the playoffs and we clinched that today. It’s just that belief factor and that positive energy on the bench, around the team and in the room and it’s propelled us.”
Swift Current’s Tanner Nagel was given a three-game suspension under suplemental discipline for the hit that has kept Zaitsev out of the lineup.
Sheen’s suspension came after he picked up a charging major that left Swift Current’s Tyler Steenbergen bloodied and knocked him out of the game. Sheen has been suspended three times for a total of 11 games this season.
The Warriors have announced that Games 1 and 2 of their Eastern Conference quarter-final series will be played on Friday, Mar. 23 and Saturday, Mar. 24.
“That’s a tough stretch for us with a lot of games in a short period of time. That’s four-in-five and five-in-seven for us. Our guys really dug deep and battled.
