For the first time since late September, the Moose Jaw Generals were at home in Mosaic Place. A place that is normally a reassuring and comfortable place to play didn’t seem to help the home team as they lacked the offensive spark they had at the beginning of the season.
“I didn’t think it was that good,” said Generals head coach Ray Wareham. “We are in a bad funk right now. We are just really struggling to find some chemistry right now.”
The slump continued with a physical, but dull 1-1 tie to the Saskatoon Blazers on Thursday evening in Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League action.
“We are very fortunate to get a point tonight (Thursday). We are happy with it, but it is not good enough,” he said.
The Generals having been looking at all options and combinations, but are still looking for answers in scoring goals.
“We’ve reunited some lines from earlier in the year thinking that would create a little bit of spark, but nothing there. It has been like that since the Tisdale weekend (Nov. 10-11),” he explained. “We went up there and played good hockey and played within ourselves and now they have decided they want to do things on their own.”
The compete and energy levels were there on Thursday evening, but the Generals had a difficult time finding the net, let alone getting it past the Blazers goaltender Evan Weniger. He made 26 saves on 27 shots. Rykr Cole scored the lone goal for the Generals, unassisted, late in the third period to tie the game. Overtime solved nothing.
“We’ve preached all week about getting to the net and making sure we go to the net, but we did the exact opposite,” stated Wareham. “Perfect example of that was in the second period…(Trey) Tendler takes a shot and the rebound it sitting right there and we have two forwards standing on the blue line.”
The Generals are hoping to change things around quickly, as they will host the Yorkton Harvest this weekend for two games. The team will still be without their captain, Rhett Gardner, who is still out with a shoulder injury. He is almost ready to be back in game action.
“They are going to have to figure it out…those veteran guys are going to have to step up, but that being said, they are some of the worst of our players,” Wareham said. “It hasn’t been good and we have to find a way to get out of it quickly. These homes games, we need to take care of them.”
With the loss, the Generals currently sit sixth in the standings.
