Warriors fall in overtime to Winnipeg in Game 4

The Moose Jaw Warriors put together another strong game Wednesday but came up just short in Game 4 of a best-of-seven WHL playoff series.

Zack Ostapchuk scored 11:56 into overtime to lift the Winnipeg Ice to a 3-2 win, tying the second-round series at 2-2.

“We went out there and we played hard and we got our looks, but there’s a couple of times where maybe we could have put the puck to the net and we didn’t. Sometimes you just need to get rubber around the goalie,” Warriors captain Denton Mateychuk said.

Game 4 was a back-and-forth contest with the teams trading goals over the 3 1/2 periods of hockey.

Martin Rysavy and Jagger Firkus had a goal and two points each in the loss.

“I actually thought we played a pretty good game, gave ourselves a chance to win, and obviously was close,” Warriors assistant coach Scott King said. “We knew it was going to be a tighter game, we knew that they would come out, they checked better and they got better goaltending, but we played good enough to win.”

The overtime winner for Winnipeg came on the power play after the Ice pressured the Warriors throughout the extra frame, outshooting them 11-2 in the period.

“In that overtime period, we kind of backed off and let them bring it to us and a team like that, when they see that you’re backing off, they’re going to take advantage of that,” Mateychuk said.

“Especially late, they took away our options pretty good, they adapted as the game went on and we’ve got to adapt too. We’ve got to be able to make plays and get the puck out of our end in crunch time.

“We’ll learn from that, we’ll watch it in the video and we’re just going to take it by stride and go into it on Saturday.”

The series now shifts to Winnipeg for Game 5 on Saturday night.

Winnipeg opened the scoring when Vladislav Shilo scored for the second straight game, finding the back of the net just 8:22 into the first period.

The Warriors answered back when Rysavy rifled home his fifth of the playoffs only 4:35 later to make it a 1-1 game after one.

The Ice struck quickly in the second period when Matthew Savoie scored only 50 seconds into the frame. Winnipeg held onto the one-goal lead going into the third.

Moose Jaw pulled even just 1:22 into the third when Firkus snapped home his eighth of the playoffs.

The Warriors pushed for the go-ahead goal in the third, outshooting Winnipeg 10-5 in the period, but they couldn’t break through.

After only one penalty for each side in regulation, the Ice headed to the power play midway through the overtime period and capitalized when Ostapchuk scored.

Connor Ungar made 38 saves in the loss, while Daniel Hauser stopped 29 shots in the win.

Mateychuk said the Warriors remain confident they can get the job done on the road.

“We’ve beat them the last two out of three times we’ve played there, so we know we can win in that rink. We’ve just got to go out there, play our game, play hard for a full 60 minutes and good things will happen,” he said.

The series comes back to Moose Jaw for Game 6 on Monday.