Mateychuk the ultimate Warrior

The Moose Jaw Warriors have been living on the edge during the WHL playoffs. And they’ve been loving it.

Six games during their recent Eastern Conference final with the Saskatoon Blades went to overtime, capped by Tuesday’s 3-2 triumph in extra time in a monumental Game 7 showdown before 13,240 fans at SaskTel Centre.

Lynden Lakovic scored the winning goal 36 seconds into extra time to send the Warriors to their first league final in 18 years, but it was defenceman Denton Mateychuk, a 19-year-old from Dominion City, who’s been doing much of the heavy lifting in the post-season.

On Tuesday, Moose Jaw’s captain played 28 minutes. Between a regular shift with defensive partner Kalem Parker and additional duties on the club’s power-play and penalty-killing units, Mateychuk logged between 28 and 36 minutes in each game of the series.

“In the bigger moments the harder he goes and the more he digs in,” Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary said Wednesday. The Warriors’ team bus was greeted by a police escort and hundreds of fans at the Moose Jaw Events Centre upon the team’s return from Saskatoon.

“You see a guy that just has that look about him when he walks into the rink. It’s game time and he’s relentless. For him to be able to do that, playing those kinds of minutes, is very impressive.”

Mateychuk, a first-round (12th overall) pick of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets in 2022, was recently named the WHL’s top defenceman based on a sensational regular season in which he scored 17 goals and 75 points in 52 games.

He’s kept up the momentum in the playoffs, scoring eight goals and 27 points in 16 games to tie teammate Jagger Firkus, a 19-year-old centre, for the post-season scoring lead.

Mateychuk was unfazed by the prospect of playing more than half of a WHL playoff game.

“I never really felt exhausted,” he said. “I think there’s just moments where it’s like, ‘Holy crap, this is a lot of hockey.’ And then you know going into overtime you get a shorter rest during intermissions and you start to feel that a little bit. We played pretty much a full extra game (in the series), so I think probably around Game 4 or 5 I started noticing that I was getting a bit tired.”

Mateychuk said Moose Jaw’s roster, supplemented by the addition of 19-year-old forwards Matt Savoie and Rilen Kovacevic and 18-year-old import defenceman Vojtech Port prior to the trade deadline, is well-constructed and mentally tough.

“We were down 3-2 in the series and we were able to get two wins and that says a lot for guys not giving up and knowing that this is our year,” said Mateychuk. “We didn’t just say, ‘Yeah, we’ve had a good run and we got pretty far but that’s where it ends.’ And I think we did the exact opposite of that.”

O’Leary, who also has Lucas Brenton, a defenceman from Winnipeg, defenceman Aiden Ziprick of Russell, and goaltender Dimitri Fortin of Winnipeg on his roster, got the mature response he wanted from his squad in Game 7.

“Even the emotional letdown of being up 2-1 late in the game (Tuesday) night — and we have a breakaway chance to make it 3-1 and we don’t score and they come down and tie it up with three minutes to go, that’s a big swing,” said O’Leary. “To punch back from that and win it in overtime right away, I just think that that shows you right there the mindset of the group.”

Beating Saskatoon earned the Warriors a trip to Portland, Ore., where they will face the Western Conference-champion Winter Hawks in Game 1 of a best-of-seven series Friday.

With the quick turnaround, the Eastern Conference champs will not practise in Portland before the opener.

“We’re erring on the side of rest,” said O’Leary. “With all the overtime games and everything, I’ve talked to the guys that play a lot and I just think those guys don’t need to touch the ice until warm-up Friday night. I just think that rest is the most important right now.”

The Warriors are slated to host Games 3, 4 and 5 (if necessary) next week.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca