It’s a perfect weekend to open the 2026-27 season for the Steinbach Pistons. They took a 3-1 win on Friday in Winkler to open the season, and last night they swept the back-to-back meetings with the Flyers in front of 2,000+ fans at the Southeast Event Centre by a score of 5-2.
Steinbach looked to carry momentum into Saturday night’s home opener, and despite being outshot 18-7 in the opening 20 minutes, they found themselves up 3-1 heading into the first intermission.
The puck popped out in front of the Winkler net, and Cullen Ingebritson fired the rebound generated by Olivier Mathieu past Jackson Dunn to open the scoring at 8:33, getting the Automobile City on its feet.
Rohan Guevarra netted his first in Pistons threads just 1:20 later. The St. Andrews, Manitoba, native caught a pass from Marek Miller and burst down the middle past the Winkler defencemen, where he used his elite hands to go top shelf.
Layne Schofield got the Flyers within one at 12:36 when he beat Lincoln Molind on the rebound in front of the Steinbach goal.
Steinbach quickly restored its two-goal lead when it found itself on a 3-on-1, and Ingebritson sent a cross-ice feed to Cole Cairns, where the captain one-timed it into the back of the net for a power-play tally, making it 3-1.
The lone goal in the second came off the stick of Marek Miller. Malachi Thiessen, with some great awareness, found Miller backdoor, and he tapped it into the empty cage 15:33 into the middle frame.
Winkler tried to make things interesting in the third period, as they cut the lead in half with less than four minutes to go when Steven Foster beat Molind from a sharp angle.
Rohan Guevarra iced the game with an empty-net goal, his second of the contest.
The Pistons held on to sweep the weekend against the Flyers and maintain a perfect record. Molind, who earned First Star honours in back-to-back games, turned aside 35 shots.
“I thought he had a very heavy workload, but he kind of made it look pedestrian to some degree,” said Pistons head coach Paul Dyck, speaking with Dave Anthony postgame. “He was calm again like he was yesterday (Friday), he was really seeing the puck well, and it’s leadership too.”
Steinbach will hit the ice next Friday at SEC when they welcome the Neepawa Titans. Puck drop is set for 7:00 p.m. CT.
Article written by Evan Waldner
