Moose Jaw Warriors goalie Brody Willms keeps on rolling.

Following the 19-year-old’s shutout win on Friday in Prince Albert, Willms turned aside 40 of the 43 shots he faced at home Saturday, helping his side to a 7-3 win over the Prince Albert Raiders.

“Sometimes you have to find different ways to win different styles of games,” he said. “Tonight was more wide open and that’s going to happen sometimes in this league throughout the season. So it was nice to be out there and get the two wins.”

Warriors head coach Tim Hunter was impressed with what he saw from Willms, especially in light of naysayers regarding his new role.

“(The Raiders) don’t have a highly offensive team, but they had some good chances, and if anyone is questioning whether or not Brody Willms is a number-one goalie, that answers that question,” Hunter said.

Willms enters the 2017-2018 season as Moose Jaw’s undisputed starter, replacing the now-departed Zach Sawchenko, who tallied a 0.917 save percentage and a goals against average of 2.79 over 51 games played last year.

The way things played out through the two games was a product of two very different games played by Moose Jaw — the contest in Prince Albert had the Warriors almost picking up where they left off in the post-season last year as they bottled up the defensive zone and kept the Raiders to the outside most of the game.

Saturday turned into a free-wheeling shoot-out at times, leading to 40-plus chances for Prince Albert, but also seven goals against.

Hunter said the offensive output was nice, but the way it came about rankled him.

“That’s not going to win you games against really good teams, and you face really good teams in the playoffs,” Hunter said. “That’s what we talked about here, about preparing for when it gets tough,” he said.

 

For more on this story, see the Sept. 26 print edition or e-edition of the Daily Herald.