The Winkler Flyers did not do themselves any favors in a 4-1 loss in Selkirk on Tuesday night. Zach Heisinger scored the Flyers’ only goal of the game as the Orange and Black dropped consecutive games for just the second time this season.
After seeing their six game winning streak come to an end, Sunday afternoon against Virden, the Winkler Flyers traveled to Selkirk looking to begin a new streak against the Steelers. Winkler had three victories in their previous three games against Selkirk and it looked like they were going to have a good chance in this one too, judging by the first few minutes.
The Flyers took it to the Steelers in the first period and generated many great scoring chances, but for a variety of reasons they failed to find the back of the net. After holding off the Flyers early attack, the Steelers took advantage of blown coverage in front of Winkler’s net and took a 1-0 lead, exactly 10 minutes into the game.
Winkler was quick to get that one back as just 1:11 later, Zach Heisinger (6) finished off a two-on-one pass from Tanner Posch and the game was tied 1-1. However, Selkirk would take the lead back with 4:51 left in the first and took their 2-1 lead into the intermission. Selkirk goaltender Teegan Sacher was one of the main reasons for that, as Winkler outshot the Steelers 16-11 through 20 minutes, with many of those shots being high quality.
Starting the second period on the power-play, the Flyers had chances to tie the game early on, but Selkirk Captain Brian MacKenzie scored on a short-handed breakaway, pushing the Steelers ahead by two, just 1:04 into the second period.
Selkirk then increased their lead to 4-1 late in the period and never looked back as Winkler was unable to beat the Selkirk netminder the rest of the way, despite more great chances.
Winkler outshot the Steelers 35-33 overall. The Flyers were 0-for-3 on the power-play and 2-for-2 on the penalty-kill. Dasan Sydora (15-4-1) took the loss making 29 saves in his ninth straight start in goal.
The second place Flyers (19-7-5) will travel to the Yellowhead Centre in Neepawa on Friday night for their second game of the season against the Natives (9-19-1). Winkler, who will be looking to snap their small two game losing skid lost in a shootout to the Natives in their first meeting of the season, November 7th in Neepawa. Puck drop in Neepawa is 7:30pm with Matt Friesen’s pregame show on Country 88.9FM and online at www.pembinavalleyonline.com getting underway at 7:25pm.