The Moose Jaw Warriors put in a gutsy performance on the road in Swift Current on Saturday night and walked away with a 3-2 win over the Broncos.

The win gives the Warriors three out of four points from the weekend home-and-home against the Broncos and puts Moose Jaw four points ahead of Swift Current on top of the East Division standings.

“Right away we knew that we had to play a lot better than we did last night and going into the game, we were prepared and showed it right in the first,” said Warriors forward Jayden Halbgewachs.

Tanner Jeannot and Halbgewachs scored just 13 seconds apart midway through the first period and Luka Burzan scored just under two minutes later as the Warriors jumped out to a big early lead.

The Broncos would push back in the second period, but the Warriors and goalie Adam Evanoff shutout the door the rest of the way to secure the win in hostile territory.

“Getting those quick goals really helped us out and eventually led us to the win, so it was a good bounce back win for us and it’s always nice to beat those guys,” said Halbgewachs, who scored his team-leading 26th goal of the season in the win.

Evanoff improved his record to 5-0-0-0 on the year as he turned away 28 shots in the win.

“All the boys were confident coming in that we were going to have a good rebound game and we saw it out there,” said Evanoff.  “I thought I played pretty good against them, the key was just knowing where everyone is on the ice, and our forwards and defence blocked a lot of shots.”

The Warriors used an early successful penalty kill to give them momentum to start the game. They pushed the pace and attacked the Broncos’ net for the majority of the opening period, out-shooting the Broncos 16-6 in the first as they built up their three-goal lead.

Moose Jaw opened the scoring at 10:32 when Evanoff made a left pad save in traffic and then Tristin Langan pushed the puck up the ice off the neutral zone boards to Jeannot, who drove down the left wing and then charged towards the Swift Current net where he pushed the pack past Broncos goalie Logan Flodell for his 20th goal of the season.

Only 13 seconds later, the Warriors were able to jam the puck to the top of the Swift Current crease where Halbgewachs scored to extend his point streak to 14 games.

Two minutes later, the Warriors once again crashed the Swift Current net and this time, Burzan chipped in his fourth goal of the year to put Moose Jaw up by three and chase Flodell from the Broncos’ net with three goals on ten shots.

“We got to the right areas at the right times,” said Halbgewachs. “You want to drive the front of the net and that’s where we scored most of our goals tonight.”

Swift Current used the first intermission to regroup and pushed back in the second period.  The Broncos picked up power play goals from Tyler Steenbergen (7:45) and Glenn Gawdin (9:10) to pull to within one and outshot the Warriors 14-7 in the second period.

In the third period, the Warriors offence kept the Broncos pinned for extended periods of time, while defensively they bent but didn’t break as they kept Swift Current to the outside and had key blocks and big saves from their rookie goaltender to hold on for the 3-2 win.

The Warriors were playing in the game without leading scorer Brayden Burke, who left Friday’s contest with a lower body injury, while captain Brett Howden and defenceman Jett Woo sat out as well.

Halbgewachs said that the team got some key contributions throughout the lineup to pull out the win.

“Guys knew that they had to step up, we were missing key parts to the puzzle and other guys stepped up,” he said.  “It shows that even though we have some adversity throughout the lineup and no matter who we have on the ice, we’re going to do our best to compete and make a game out of it."

The Warriors exit the weekend with a record of 21-5-1-1 and sit four points up on the Broncos for top spot in the East Division.

They’re now off until Tuesday when they host the Medicine Hat Tigers at Mosaic Place.  After the game the Warriors will head to Alberta for a three-game in four-day road trip with stops in Edmonton, Red Deer, and Calgary next Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.