MOOSE JAW -- Things might have turned out far more interesting than they would have liked, but the Moose Jaw Warriors were still able to find the win column in Western Hockey League action on Tuesday night.
The Red Deer Rebels find a way to tie the game three times in the third period before the Warriors would go on to a 5-4 shootout victory at Temple Gardens Centre in Moose Jaw.
Moose Jaw improves to 6-5-1-0 and remain in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, Red Deer falls to 2-8-0-1 and are 11th overall.
Neither team was able to hit the scoresheet in the first period, though it wasn’t for a lack of chances as both goaltenders had to come up with big saves to keep things scoreless.
The Rebels were the first to break through in the second, though, when Arjun Bawa forced a turnover in the Red Deer zone and sent Ty Coupland in on a partial breakaway. He’d tuck the puck around Matthew Hutchison in the Warriors net for the 1-0 lead at 2:21.
The lead wouldn’t last the period as Ethan Semeniuk forced a turnover at the Warriors blueline and sent Lynden Lakovic in all alone on Rebels goaltender Peyton Shore, with a slick backhand top shelf making it a 1-1 game with a minute remaining in the frame.
That set the stage for a wild third period.
Lakovic got things started, scoring his 10th of the season 1:19 into the frame by banking the puck in off Shore at the side of the net during a power play.
Noah Milford replied for Red Deer by batting a puck out of the air and into the Warriors net 48 seconds later, but only 1:52 after that marker, Semeniuk would redirect an Aiden Ziprick point shot for Moose Jaw’s second power play goal.
The goals kept coming as the Rebels’ Keith McInnis tied things 3-3 with a laser beam of a point shot with 6:57 gone in period, followed by Landen McFadden restoring the Moose Jaw edge at the 9:52 mark.
That’s where things would stand until Bawa found a loose puck at the side of the net and put a shot home with 4:40 to play in regulation.
Overtime would solve nothing and the Warriors ended up in their first shootout of the season.
Things would go their way, as Riley Thorpe scored the eventual winner and Hutchison stopped two of the four Red Deer attempts to secure the win.
Hutchison finished with 38 saves in picking up the victory, Shore had 21 stops in the loss.
The Warriors return to action Friday when they host the Lethbridge Hurricanes, with puck drop at 7 p.m. at Temple Gardens Centre.
