The Moose Jaw Warriors offence exploded on Thursday night in Calgary

The Tribe scored eight unanswered goals, including five in the third period, as they cruised to a 10-2 win over the Calgary Hitmen at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

Moose Jaw had their moments early in the game, but the Hitmen controlled the play in the first ten minutes. Their fore-check was aggressive along the Warriors wall and that led to a 10-2 advantage on the shot clock and a goal from Pavel Karnaukhov at 14:47.

Twelve seconds later, the Warriors responded when the fourth line went to work. Landon Quinney took a shot from the bottom of the right Calgary circle, the puck went off the right pad of goalie Kyle Dumba and right to Brayden Watts on the bottom of the left circle where he scored his first WHL goal.

Moose Jaw kept the pressure on, they were getting shots from all angles towards the net and had plenty of bodies in front of the net looking to knock the puck in.

At 16:22, Warriors captain Brayden Point went into his bag of tricks for his seventh of goal of the season. Point drove through the middle of the Calgary zone and was able to split their defence before putting the puck between the pads of Dumba.

Calgary found an equalizer early in the second period when Layne Bensmiller scored just 2:22 into the frame.

After starting the second slow, the Warriors got better as the period continued.

At 9:07, Tanner Jeannot created a turnover inside the neutral zone and tossed the puck ahead where Jiri Smejkal led a two-on-one rush with Ryan Bowen. Smejkal set up Bowen for a shot on the right side and his second of the year gave Moose Jaw their second lead of the game.

Twenty two seconds later, the line of Brett Howden, Jesse Shynkaruk, and Noah Gregor went hard on the fore-check. Gregor set up behind the net and tossed the puck to the front of the Calgary net where Howden grabbed the loose puck, spun, and fired a backhand through the pads of Dumba to make it 4-2.

The offence didn't stop there for the Warriors.

With under seven minutes left in the period, Smejkal and Jeannot were aggressive along the Calgary left wall, finally gaining control and sliding the puck to the blueline for Tyler Brown, who quickly hit Tanner Faith on the right line who came to the top of the right circle where he ripped a shot over the glove of Dumba to make it a three-goal game.

That goal spelled the end for Calgary’s starting goalie as Dumba was pulled after allowing five goals on 19 shots.

In the third period, the Warriors didn't let off the gas pedal as they added five more goals; Noah Gregor scored a pair of power play goals; Brayden Point notched his second of the game; Jesse Shynkaruk scored his first of the season; and Nikita Popugaev scored his sixth of the year.

Point finished with two goals and four points; Gregor had two goals and three points; Smejkal picked up three assists; Marc McNulty had two assists and was plus-4 in his debut; and Zach Sawchenko made 27 saves.

Moose Jaw finished 2-for-4 on the power play and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill.

The Warriors will have Friday off, they wrap up their Central Division road trip Saturday in Edmonton with their second meeting of the season against the Oil Kings.

Western Nissan Warriors Hockey on Country 100 gets underway with the Western Lumber Timber Mart Pre-Game Show at 6:40pm.