The Prince Albert Mintos pushed right to the very end, but couldn’t find the game tying goal as they fell to the Tisdale Trojans 4-3 at the Art Hauser Centre on Sunday afternoon.
Assistant coach Bryan Swystun says the Mintos didn’t capitalize on good scoring chances early in the game.
“Our lack of inability to score early on good scoring chances comes back to haunt us late in the game. We can’t expect to give teams one and two goal leads and claw back all the energy that it takes to do that and expect results. It’s not gonna happen all the time.”
An early power play goal from Jaxon Kehrig would get the Trojans on the board less than two minutes into the first period.Dayton Reschny and Ryder Mucha picked up the helpers.
Prince Albert would knot the score with 15:00 remaining in the opening frame as Abinet Klassen would pick up his 14th goal of the season. Kelan Simmonds and Carter Cole assisted on the play.
Mucha would give the Trojans a lead heading into the first intermission with his 20th goal of the season with 3:11 remaining. Kehrig and Reschny assisted on the play.
Shots favored Prince Albert 13-8 after twenty minutes of play.
Mucha would pick up his second goal of the hockey game just thirty four seconds into the second period to extend the Tisdale lead to 3-1. Kehrig and Sam Rousseau assisted on the play.
Owen Nelson would strike for his 26th goal of the season to bring the Mintos within one. Kale Margolis and Simon Garchinski assisted on the play.
Dayton Reschny would restore the two goal lead for Tisdale with 10:21 remaining in the third period with his 20th goal of the season. Mucha and Reid Slugoski assisted on the play
Konnor Watson’s seventh goal of the season would bring the Mintos within just one with 5:17 to go in the third period. Will Whitter had the lone helper.
The Mintos would push for the equalizer, but could not solve Trojan netminder Jackson Dunn, who made 39 saves in the win. Brady Holtvogt made 18 stops for Prince Albert.
Swystun says the result Sunday shows the Mintos need to play with a lead more consistently.
“Every game is important. we can’t take a shift off, we’ve seen it in the last two games of three games even the Contacts game. We control the majority of the play and we have some breakdowns and they score and it changes the whole complexity of the game and we just can’t expect to keep fighting back all the time and expect to win games. It’s an experience for us, I think the good thing that comes out of it is we can come back but we don’t want to play like that all the time. We’d rather play with the lead and that just hasn’t been happening lately.”.
The Mintos return to action on Thursday when they battle the Saskatoon Contacts at the Art Hauser Centre. Puck drops at 7 p.m.
