MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- The Moose Jaw Warriors would most certainly like to have the first period back from their Western Hockey League pre-season opener against the Regina Pats on Wednesday night.
Or, more specifically, 31 seconds from the first period.
Regina scored three goals from 8:24 through 8:55 of the opening frame and would go on to a 7-4 victory as the Warriors opened their exhibition campaign in Estevan. It was the second game of the pre-season for the Pats, who fell 8-5 to Swift Current on Wednesday.
Despite the loss, Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary was more concerned about seeing progress from his troops, which was something that came about even as the game moved along.
“It’s all about taking steps as we move along here, whether it’s day-to-day or period-by-period,” he said in post-game comments to the Warriors’ Marc Smith. “We want to better today than we were yesterday and better tomorrow than we were today. It’s the same throughout the game, I thought we were better in the second than we were in the first and our best period was the third period.”
Both teams had line-ups filled with rookies, with the Warriors dressing eight first-year players and the Pats seven.
Jaxsin Vaughn opened scoring for the Pats at 8:24 of the game, followed by Corbin Vaughn 15 seconds later and Cole Tempe 16 seconds after that goal.
The Warriors got back on track not long after, and Connor Schmidt scored their first goal with 12:32 gone before Max Finley made it a one-goal game 1:25 into the second.
Regina regained control of the game not long after with goals from Temple, Logan Peskett and Sam Oremba, taking a 6-2 lead out of the second period.
Ethan Hughes and Owen Berge then had goals for the Warriors in the third period, with Hughes finishing the game with a goal and two points.
“It took a bit to get used to for our first game in a little bit, but I thought we did a good job in some areas,” Hughes said. “We didn’t do a good job in the D zone to start the game but it got better… I felt progress throughout the game, and we’ll come back tomorrow and be better.”
Zane Rowan capped scoring with 32 seconds remaining in the contest.
Dimitri Fortin started in goal for the Warriors and stopped 29 shots, while Madden Mulawka had 28 stops for Regina.
The two teams are right back on the ice on Saturday night with another neutral site contest, this time at the sold out Southland Co-op Centre in Assiniboia. Game time is 7 p.m.
