Special teams were huge for the Moose Jaw Warriors on Friday night as they returned to the win column.

Moose Jaw tied a season-high with three power play goals as they skated to a 5-2 win over the Calgary Hitmen at Mosaic Place.

“We’re still getting some guys back from injury, it was nice to have (Dmitri) Zaitsev back, but we know we’ve got some recruitments coming back, so we’re just going to try to do our best to make sure the points keep coming in,” said forward Brayden Burke, who finished with three assists, all on the power play in the win.

“This wasn’t the greatest team effort, we know we’ve got to be a bit better, but to get the two points in a game where we didn’t play our best is nice.”

After struggling with the man advantage to start the season, the Warriors have really found a groove on the power play recently, scoring three power play goals in two of the past three games.

Moose Jaw finished 3-for-5 in Friday’s win, while they went 4-for-5 on the penalty kill to help secure the two points.

“Earlier (this season), we couldn’t get a couple seems open and nothing was really working, so it’s nice to get some passes and a couple goals to loosen up the hands a bit,” said Burke.

Burke passed a big milestone in the win, registering his 200th career assist on Friday.

Moose Jaw received contributions from throughout their lineup in the win with Tate Popple, Luka Burzan, Noah Gregor, Tanner Jeannot and Jayden Halbgewachs all finding the back of the net.

Back-up goalie Adam Evanoff improved to 4-0 on the year with 38-save performance to help lead Moose Jaw to the win.

“I felt pretty comfortable from the start, I worked pretty this week in practice with Matt (Weninger),” said Evanoff.  “The boys were ready to go and we rebounded well after the last game.”

Popple opened the scoring just before the midway point of the first period with his first career WHL goal.  Burzan’s third of the season came about seven minutes later to make it 2-0 for Moose Jaw after 20 minutes.

The first ten minutes of the second period were controlled by the Hitmen, who picked up goals from Luke Coleman and Mark Kastelic just 4:52 into the middle frame.

The Warriors battled back after that and took over the second half of the period, scoring power play goals from Gregor and Jeannot to restore the two-goal lead heading into the third.

Calgary came out firing early in the third as well, but a 15-minute delay due to a dislodged piece of glass quieted the Hitmen’s momentum and Halbgewachs scored late in the third to seal the win for Moose Jaw.

“In a lot of games, we’re using our pace to our advantage and playing some really tight games and then just at the end, giving them a break and not capitalizing on our chances,” said Coleman.

The Warriors were outshot 40-34 in the win.

Moose Jaw will be back on home ice on Saturday night for a rematch with the Saskatoon Blades, who snapped the Warriors’ six-game winning streak on Wednesday with a 5-4 win at SaskTel Centre.

“We didn’t play very well on Wednesday, excuses aside, we just didn’t play very well, so we’re hoping to come out with a little more jump in our step and hopefully we can get the win,” said Burke.

Puck drops at 7 p.m. The Pre-Game Show is on the air at 6:40 p.m. on Country 100.