The Queen City Young Guns stormed to a 6-3 victory over the Warriors Hockey Academy in a game that saw momentum swing wildly before the visitors pulled away in the final period. The Young Guns set the tone early, with Eli McCalmon opening the scoring just under eight minutes into the first period. The pressure continued on a power play, as Slade Lesy doubled the lead with an assist from McCalmon. The Warriors struggled to find their footing, managing only a handful of shots in the opening frame as the Young Guns controlled the pace.
The second period saw a brief resurgence from the home side. After Jack McGillivray extended the Young Guns' lead, Karter Paulgaard answered back for the Warriors, assisted by Bentley Argue and Benjamin Miller, to make it 3-1. However, any hope of a comeback was quickly dampened. Max Birnie restored the three-goal cushion for Queen City with a power-play goal, assisted by Jett Ryan, which would ultimately stand as the game-winner. The period was marred by penalties, including coincidental minors for roughing, as the physicality ramped up.
Any chance of a Warriors rally was extinguished in a dominant third-period display by the Young Guns. Meyer Rokosh gave the home crowd a flicker of hope with an early power-play goal, assisted by Nash Reschny, cutting the deficit to 4-2. But Queen City responded with devastating speed, as Nixon Dueck scored just 15 seconds later, and Max Birnie netted his second of the game less than two minutes after that to put the game out of reach at 6-2. A late power-play goal from Noah Reschny, assisted by Owen Blume and Daxon Cummings, provided mere consolation for the Warriors, who were outshot 14-2 in the final frame. The Young Guns' offensive depth, led by Birnie's two goals and McGillivray's multi-point night, proved too much for the Warriors to handle.
