The Richardson Pioneer Weyburn Red Wings were looking to improve to 3-1 in the preseason Tuesday night when they welcomed the Notre Dame Hounds to Crescent Point Place. The Hounds, however, had different ideas as they skated to a 2-1 win over the Red Wings in their first preseason matchup of the 2021-22 campaign.

The game had a quick pace, with the action moving from zone to zone rather quickly. The two teams were relatively evenly matched, with Weyburn recording 26 shots on goal and the Hounds 29. In the end, however, it would be a power play that would be the difference as the Hounds scored with the man advantage in the third period to even the game up, and the game-winner coming with 3.6 seconds left on the clock.

Overall, Red Wings head coach Cody Mapes pointed out there are some things the team will need to work on as they get ready for the regular season.

“The compete level’s got to be a little bit higher for some of our guys,” Mapes said after the game. “It’s a big step from leagues that they played in last year, and you’re not going to be able to get away with some of the stuff that you’ve done in the past, so we gotta make sure that we do some of the things a little bit better, we gotta clean up our neutral zone and things like that.”

Weyburn’s lone goal was at the 13:05 mark of the second period. It came from Drew Kuzma, who notched his first goal of the preseason. He managed to put the puck behind Hounds netminder Joe Kuchaslo, almost willing himself to get the puck on his stick during a goalmouth scramble. The tally was assisted by Jakob Kalin and Simon Pollock.

In net, Wings goalie Cam Beson appeared to pick up where he left off in his last preseason start, making a number of big saves at the right moments, including during an extended 5-on-3 man advantage for Notre Dame.  

“He was good,” Mapes said of the performance from Beson. “When you score one goal, what do you expect – your goalie’s got to be perfect to win a game so we’ve got make sure we take care of the other end of the ice too.”

The Wings will now head up to Wilcox Wednesday night for the back half of the home-and-home series.