A great first period helped the Winkler Flyers beat the visiting Dauphin Kings 3-1 on Friday night. The Orange and Black scored three times in the first twelve minutes of the game and never looked back, winning their 11th game of the season.
After seeing their five game winning streak snapped Tuesday night in Selkirk, the Flyers returned home looking for their second win of the season against Dauphin. Winning the first meeting 7-1 in Dauphin at the beginning of the month, the Flyers were looking for the same type of effort the second time around.
Winkler drew first blood just over three minutes into the game when Lawson McDonald snuck his fourth of the year under the pad of Kings’ goaltender Brandon Holtby and the Flyers had a 1-0 lead. Ian Mackey and Braeden Binda picked up the assists.
With 10:54 remaining in the first, Jeff Michiels and Gino Lucia assisted on Nolan McGuire’s seventh of the season and Winkler’s lead had doubled to 2-0. Just a few minutes later, forward Ian Mackey picked up the puck in the neutral zone, carried it over the Kings blueline and beat Holtby for his fourth goal of the year to give Winkler a 3-0 lead.
The Kings scored their only goal, midway through the second period but that would be the only blemish of the night for goaltender Josh Williams who had another strong performance between the pipes for Winkler.
Williams increased his record to 2-0 while making 24 saves in the win. The Flyers outshot Dauphin 32-25 overall. Winkler went 0-for-5 on the power-play and 4-for-4 on the penalty-kill.
The second place Flyers (11-4) will take on the fifth place (10-3) Portage Terriers at the PCU centre in Portage on Saturday, October 29th. Puck drop in Portage is 7:30pm.The Flyers defeated the Terriers 9-3 in their first meeting of the season on October 18th in Winkler. You can catch Saturday’s game live on Country 88.9FM and online at www.pembinavalleyonline.com with Matt Friesen’s pregame show at 7:25pm.
GREAT CANADIAN OIL CHANGE THREE STARS
1st Star – F Ian Mackey (Winkler)
2nd Star – D Lawson McDonald (Winkler)
3rd Star – G Josh Williams (Winkler)