teluscup MJ

The rust appears to be gone for the Moose Jaw Generals.

The Telus Cup hosts played one of their most complete games of the season on Tuesday night to come away with a point in a 3-3 tie against the Okanagan Rockets.

“I thought were good (Monday) night, but a little rusty and then tonight, I thought we were good from the get-go,” said Generals head coach Ray Wareham after the team's second game at the midget national championship. “Very pleased with the kids effort and happy to get a point out of it.”

The Generals went into the game knowing what to expect from the highly skilled and speedy Rockets, but in the early going they were able to counterattack that with their own speed and strong offensive zone play.

“We just wanted to make sure that we pushed them and make them play in their own end,” said Wareham. “When we were cycling the puck, creating turnovers and getting in on the fore check, I thought we generated a lot of chances.”

Moose Jaw was able to do that right from the opening puck drop and it paid off early as Regan Nagy and Ben Verrall scored goals three minutes apart to give the Generals a 2-0 lead just 6:24 into the game.

Okanagan started slow for the second straight game and were left chasing the Generals after falling down in the first period.

“We just need to play a full sixty,” said Mack O'Rourke, head coach of the Rockets. “If we can just come out of the gate, get on someone early, maybe get a couple first for ourselves and not play comeback hockey, we'll have a better result.

“You get yourself in a hole and you comeback to tie it up, you can be too upset about everything, but it's a tough one right now.”

Tanner Wishnowski got the Rockets on the board 57 seconds into the second period and the action really picked up from there.

Donovan Neuls restored Moose Jaw’s two-goal lead, scoring a power play goal right in front of the Okanagan goal midway through the second.

Wishnowski took over the game after that. He cut back into the Generals lead just 36 seconds after Neuls on an end-to-end rush, cutting in just under the circle and beating Grant Naherniak up over the blocker.

He pulled off an almost identical play just under two minutes later, expect this time he dished it off to Cory Santoro for a power play goal that tied the game at 3-3 heading into the third period.

“I just got on the dots, used my speed to the outside, had my head up and I knew I could beat him on the first wide,” explained Wishnowski on what he saw during his two highlight reel plays. “On the second one, I just came wide and dished it over to Cory Santoro and he buried it.”

“We were trying not to give them neutral zone and on those last couple goals, you saw what happened if we gave them the neutral zone, they were by us in a hurry,” said Wareham. “That's by far the best transition team that I've seen this year and the skill level on that team and the speed is second to none, so we knew were going to have our hands full and I thought our kids did a fantastic job.”

After 15 minor penalties effected the flow of the game during the first two periods, both teams opened it up in the third period for some end-to-end action. That led to some close calls at both ends, but both goalies held strong for the tie.

Naherniak ended up making 28 saves in the game, while Brendan Barry stopped 33 of the 36 shots that the Generals directed his way.  

Moose Jaw ended up going 3-for-6 on the power play and 5-for-7 on the penalty kill.

Tuesday started with the Mintos and Grenadiers skating to a 1-1 tie in a back-and-forth game. The second game of the day featured Toronto picking up a 3-0 win over Halifax.

The Generals are back in action on Wednesday night against the (1-1-0) Toronto Young Nationals at 7:30pm. Okanagan plays (1-0-1) Prince Albert at 4:00pm. The first game of the day will have (0-1-1) Halifax going against (0-0-2) Chateauguay at 12:00pm.