For the second straight night, the Winkler Flyers played well enough to win but were forced to settle for the loss as the Orange and Black fell 4-3 in Swan Valley on Saturday night. After scoring twice in the opening five minutes and firing 43 shots on goal, the Flyers failed to get the goals they needed at the end dropping their second straight game to the Stampeders.

On the heals of a tough loss the night before in Virden, the Flyers continued their trip up the Swan River to face the Stampeders for the fifth time this season. It was the Flyers who won the first three meetings, but the Stamps got the upper hand in their most recent meeting a few weeks ago in Swan River.

The Flyers could not have asked for a better start as Will Blake found the back of the net just 3:21 into the game and the Flyers had hit the ground running. Just over a minute later, Winkler struck again when Weiland Parrish carried the puck across the goal mouth and scored his 20th of the season to double Winkler’s lead to 2-0.

Winkler failed to keep momentum as the Stamps scored the next two goals and the game went into the first intermission tied 2-2.

The Flyers regained their lead on the power-play just over eight minutes into the second when Matt Christian and Coltyn Bates assisted on Mitch Dyck’s point shot giving Winkler a 3-2 advantage. However, Swan Valley drew even again a few minutes later and then took their first lead of the game with 1:05 left in the period and the Flyers were forced to play catch up in the third.

The final period saw Winkler generate a number of great looks around the Stampeders’ net but the breaks just wouldn’t come as the Flyers were forced to settle for the 4-3 loss.

Troy Martyniuk took the loss in goal as the Flyers outshot Swan Valley 43-38. Winkler went 0-for-1 on the power-play and 2-for-3 on the penalty-kill. The Flyers (32-23-0) will travel to Steinbach (43-8-3) on Monday afternoon (2:30pm) for their final road game of the regular season. You can catch the game live on Country 88.9FM or online at www.pembinavalleyonline.com with Matt Friesen’s pregame show at 2:25pm.

GREAT CANADIAN OIL CHANGE THREE STARS
1ST STAR – F JOSH TRIPP (SWAN VALLEY)
2ND STAR – F KEATON JAMESON (SWAN VALLEY)
3RD STAR – F COLTYN BATES (WINKLER)

GAME STATS