The Winkler Flyers increased their winning streak to five, with a 4-1 win over the visiting Swan Valley Stampeders on Saturday night. The Flyers raced out to a 3-0 first period lead as they improved to 11-2-2 on home ice this season.
With a week off after winning all three of their road games last weekend, the Flyers returned home for the first time since beating Selkirk 6-1 at home on November 9th. The Flyers and Stampeders had met once before this season with Winkler shutting out the Stamps 6-0 in Swan on October 19th.
The Flyers, who had a 14-0-2 record when scoring the game’s first goal and they did just that on Saturday, as Zak Hicks scored his second of the season from the top of the circle and Winkler led 1-0, 3:26 into the game. Patrice Wren and Cam Whyte picked up the assists.
With seven minutes to play in the opening period the Flyers increased their lead to 2-0. Leading an odd man rush into the Stampeders zone, Tristan Keck hammered on the breaks in the right slot and fed the puck across to a streaking Jon Carlson who found the back of the net, doubling Winkler’s lead. Shawn Pachet also assisted on Carlson’s second of the year.
Patrice Wren then found a loose puck in front of the goal and extended Winkler’s lead to 3-0 with 2:36 to play in the period. Nolan McGuire and Cam Whyte assisted on Wren’s fifth of the year.
The Flyers took their three goal lead into the first intermission while out-shooting Swan Valley 16-11.
After a scoreless second period, the Stampeders cut Winkler’s lead to 3-1 when Tristan Langan beat goaltender Dasan Sydora over the blocker shoulder, 5:05 into the third.
However, Tristan Keck was quick to get that one back for Winkler when he scored his league leading 24th of the season just 42 seconds later. Evan Last picked up the lone assist and the Flyers lead was now 4-1 with 14:13 left in regulation.
That would be plenty for the Flyers who would shut the door the rest of the way and picked up their 18th win of the season and fifth in a row.
Dasan Sydora (14-2-1) made 26 saves picking up his 14th win of the season. The Flyers outshot the Stampeders 31-27 overall. Winkler went 0-for-3 on the power-play and 3-for-3 on the penalty-kill. Tristan Keck (1G-1A), Patrice Wren (1G-1A) and Cam Whyte (2A) all finished the game with two points each.
The Flyers (18-5-5) will travel to Selkirk on Sunday night for their third meeting of the season against the Steelers (10-12-1). The second place Flyers are 2-0 against Selkirk this season. You can catch the game live on Country 88.9FM on online at www.pembinavalleyonline.com with Matt Friesen’s pregame show getting underway at 7:25pm.