The Westlock Senior ‘AA’ Warriors face an uphill climb following back-to-back losses in the best-of-five opening round of the North Central Alberta Hockey league playoffs.
In Morinville to visit the Kings Jan. 20-21, the Warriors fell 6-2 in Game 1, then dropped Game 2 6-3.
For nearly half of the Saturday night tilt, the Warriors managed to maintain a lead, but fell apart in the third.
Nathan Brown opened the scoring at 10:11 of the first period with an unassisted power play goal.
Scott Ivey put the Warriors up by two a couple minutes later, with an assist from Gord Bell.
That was the end of the Warriors’ goal scoring though as Morinville netted six unanswered goals — one in the first, one in the second and four in the third.
“I think we just broke down a little bit in our systems in the third period and we allowed them to come at us rather than us going back at them and that was really the difference at the end of the day,” said Warriors general manager Joe Kuhar.
It was a raucous game with 25 penalties called between the two teams, including three 10-minute misconducts for the Warriors and four for the Kings in the third period.
“The third period got a little heated because it was a close game. There were a few penalties towards the end so things ended in a heated affair just because of the rivalry between us so I would expect the next game to be very similar,” said Kuhar.
“Physically, we definitely took it to them, we just didn’t capitalize on the chances we had. And our goalie played really well last night, so he definitely kept us in the game for sure.”
Sunday’s game played out much the same, with Westlock grabbing an early 1-0 lead on a Brett Bujold marker.
The Kings managed to tie the game before the end of the first, then took a 2-1 lead in the second before Ryan Nelles evened the score 2-2. Morinville shot ahead again, but Nelles potted his second of the night to make it 3-3.
But in the third the Kings went on another run, potting three unanswered goals to make it a 6-3 final.
The Warriors look to extend their season in Game 3 versus the Kings at the Rotary Spirit Centre Jan. 26.
