Brett Howden limped the the dressing room after a late second period collision with questions about his status for the rest of the game.

The Moose Jaw captain had a much different expression heading back down the tunnel later in the night after scoring the overtime winner in the Warriors' Game 3 victory over Swift Current.

Less than three minutes into extra time he was going to the net as the puck came bouncing off of Tanner Jeannot's stick and right to Howden for a quick ending to OT.

It was the New York Ranger prospect's second of the game as Moose Jaw regained home ice advantage in a hard fought game.

"Effort was there," said Broncos Associate Coach Ryan Smith "Execution and details were a little off tonight. Credit to Moose Jaw. They needed to get one back and they did it. I thought our game was just a little off tonight. Just some mistakes and some reads and that ends up costing you opportunities and goals."



The Broncos felt it was a solid effort, but just not quite enough overall.

"I don't think we played bad," said Broncos forward Aleksi Heponiemi. "It wasn't a bad game, but it was not the best of ours. We can play way better. We have to keep pushing and play the details better... We are doing stuff right on the offensively zone, but we've got to be better in the defensive zone. We have to back check better and do all the little things better."



The Warriors ended up out-shooting Swift Current 32-23 on the night as the Broncos felt they needed to get more pucks at Brody Willms in the Moose Jaw net.

"We only charted 20," Smith said. "We didn't get enough traffic and we didn't get enough shots. We got away from our game. We weren't good and they were. They were the better team tonight. We for some reason abandoned our game from the other night and we can't do that. That was the reason we won and we have to get back to that."

Swift Current got off to a good start as Glenn Gawdin struck on the power play after some nice passing from Giorgio Estephan and Heponiemi.

Moose Jaw responded on a bizarre sequence. Josh Anderson drilled Howden with a huge open ice hit and Moose Jaw's captain was slow getting to the bench. As a result his change caught the Broncos off guard and led to a two-on-one rush that Brayden Burke finished for his 8th of the playoffs.

The Warriors took a lead early in the second period when Howden ripped a wrist-shot through traffic on Moose Jaw's third power play of the night.

Swift Current managed to tie it up at the end of another man advantage when Matteo Gennaro and Beck Malenstyn worked a give-and-go for Gennaro's 3rd of the post-season.

The Broncos then pulled ahead on a beautiful goal put together by their two best puck-moving defenceman. Colby Sissons made a great move from the point to open up a scoring chance that Artyom Minulin jumped up for and deflected in for his first of the playoffs and a 3-2 Swift Current lead.

Swift Current hadn't lost all playoffs when they'd had a lead, but fell under pressure early in the third period as Moose Jaw pressed for a tie. Just over five minutes into the third Jett Woo made a nice spin move off the wall to the corner and set up a Kale Clague one-timer that Burke deflected in for a tie game.

It was a pretty even period the rest of the way as neither team was able to pull ahead and the Broncos had to kill off a late Warriors power play.

The first overtime in Swift Current's playoff run this season didn't last long before Howden struck for the winning goal.

Now the Broncos need a win in Game 4 tomorrow night in Swift Current to avoid getting down in a 3-1 hole.

"There's pressure every game," Smith noted. "It's the playoffs there's no time to take a night off and we'll get 'em next game. I don't know if it's pressure. We need to come out and have a good game tomorrow and win."

The two teams had a full minute of silence before the game to honour the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

You can listen to Game 4 live on The Eagle 94.1 FM with Robertson Family Group Broncos Hockey at 6:30pm.