Courtesy of Steinbaconline.com
For a second straight game, the Steinbach Pistons held a lead only to watch it slowly slip away but forced the game into a shootout getting one point but losing in the shootout 3-2 on Saturday night to the Winkler Flyers.
In front of a packed house, two of the top tier teams in the MJHL gave the fans a back and forth contest that was intense and fast paced from opening faceoff to the final shooter. Head coach Paul Dyck talks about watching what a great hockey game it was, despite the loss was. “It was a good hockey game with two good teams. We knew it was going to be tight game again tonight. They came in hungry, the last three we won and we expected a big push back and especially at the end of the game they really went for it.”
Joe Carney scored his first as a Steinbach Piston and first in the Manitoba Junior hockey league to open up the scoring in the first period and Cole Smith would find the back of the net on the power play in the second period. Tyler Penner, Mack Graham and Dan Taillefer had assists for Steinbach.
Winkler had a chance to get the win late in the third period on a break away by Tristan Keck but Jeremy Wik stood tall and made sure the Pistons got at least one point. “He made some big saves and not just on Keck.” said Dyck post game, “we had a couple break downs defensively in the last five minutes but he came up big ensuring we got one point with a chance for two.”
The Pistons wrap up a stretch of 3 games in 3 nights on Sunday on the road against the Winnipeg Blues and Dyck knows the effort needs to be there up and down the lineup. “We need to put a full game together. We’ve had leads in back to back nights and we have to learn how to finish those games off. We have to regroup and we need to come with energy, we’re playing a good, young club in Winnipeg and it’ll be another good test for us.”
The Pistons vs the Blues will be on AM 1250 radio and steinbachonline.com with the pre-game show starting at 6:15 and puck drop at 6:30.
Note: Prior to puck drop, Pistons forward Mack Graham was named the Gold’n’Memories Pistons Player of the Month for September/October. Graham had 6 goals and 8 assists for 14 points in that time frame.