A pair of weekend wins against the second- and third-place teams in the North Central Senior Hockey League has all but clinched first place for the Westlock Senior ‘AA’ Warriors.
The Warriors took it to the third-place Devon Barons with a 4-1 win on Dec. 19, and followed it up with a 5-2 win over the second-place Morinville Kings Dec. 20 to take a commanding seven-point lead in the standings.
As long as the Warriors don’t lose all four of their regular-season games in 2015, they’ll finish the regular season in the league’s top spot.
“If we lost three, we would still clinch first place if they won all the rest of their game,” coach Joe Kuhar said. “I could say we’ve pretty well clinched first place.”
Both away games, however, got off to a bit of a rocky start for the Warriors who struggled with a short bench including missing out on one of their major scoring lines.
“We were down basically one of our top two lines, and were still basically able to bear down and overcome anything they sent our way,” Kuhar said.
In Devon, the Barons took an early lead forcing the Warriors to buckle down and get back to their systems. Kuhar gave a lot of credit to goaltender Marcus Johnson for holding the fort while the offense got the Warriors on the board.
“Marcus stood on his head in the second and third period to keep Devon at bay, then we scored on our opportunities and played the game we normally play,” he said.
The next night in Morinville, the Warriors again got off to a slow start against the Kings.
“We didn’t have a period that we would have liked to have seen, we were just maybe a little bit sloppy in our play, but in the last 40 minutes we played the game we usually play,” he said.
Again he credited the goaltender — this time Chris Kuhar — with putting up the roadblock that stopped their opponents in their tracks.
“They basically outshot us (in two periods),” Kuhar said. “We just got back to getting our legs going and getting our momentum in the second period, and that carried on into the third.”
For the rest of the regular season — just another few weeks worth — Kuhar said the Warriors will keep at it, hoping for a strong finish.
The next action will be an away game Jan. 3 in Slave Lake, meaning just a two-week break in the action for the Christmas holidays.
“We’ll be still short a few players coming back for that game, but we’re confident going into the last remaining games we’ll be able to hold our form,” Kuhar said. “We’re looking forward to the playoff, for sure.”
The Warriors are scheduled to finished the regular season with three home games — Jan. 9 against Whitecourt, Jan. 16 against Slave Lake and Jan. 17 against Edson.
