The Moose Jaw Generals are playing well, but just can’t seem to get a break.

The Generals lost for the fourth straight game and ninth time in the past 10 games on Sunday when they dropped a 6-3 game to the Saskatoon Contacts in the Bridge City.

The score wasn’t indicative of the game, according to Generals coach Darwin Hazell, who was serving as head coach for the game with Ray Wareham and Kevin Moore both away.

“It’s the story of the year, these guys are working hard and we just can’t seem to get any puck luck,” said Hazell.  “It wasn’t a lack of effort that cost us the game.”

Despite their record, the fact that the Generals are staying in games is giving the team confidence that they’ll be able to get on track.

“The team seems to be in pretty good spirits and they don’t give up, they battle hard right until the end,” said Hazell.  “It’s not a lack of effort, it’s the little things that come back to get us once in a while, but it’s partly due to it being a young team.”

Moose Jaw fell behind 3-0 early in the second period when Saskatoon’s Josh Paulhus found the back of the net just 1:39 into the middle frame.

The Generals found their stride shortly after that however as they struck for three goals in a six-minute span, starting with Jake Palmer’s sixth of the season just 1:34 after Paulhus’ goal.

Jaxon Georget scored on the power play 4:03 later and then just 1:57 after that, Generals’ leading scorer Cal Caragata potted his seventh of the season to even up the game at 3-3.

Paulhus restored the Contacts’ lead late in the second and then Saskatoon added two more goals in the third period to hold off the Generals.

“Things started clicking (in the second period), we got them hemmed in their end and line-after-line rolled and we were able to put some in,” said Hazell.  “We gave up that fourth one and it took a little steam out of us, but the boys bounced back in the third and played really well, just no puck luck.”

Generals goalie Jake Davidson was peppered with 56 shots in the loss, while Moose Jaw fired just 29 shots on the Contacts’ net.

Hazell said they need to focus on cleaning up the defensive end, “We gave up too many shots again,” he said.  “We’ll work on that and see if we can get them all playing on the same page.”

The Generals are back in action this weekend when they head to Tisdale for a pair of games against the Trojans.