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TORONTO — Brad Gushue’s team was back at full-strength at the Players’ Championship and back in business picking up a pair of wins Thursday to climb to a 3-1 record.

The St. John’s, N.L., crew opened the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling tournament short-handed. Second Brett Gallant had to make a detour home to P.E.I. following Sunday’s world championship silver-medal finish in Las Vegas to attend his grandfather’s funeral and missed their first couple games.

Team Gushue, who have won eight titles in the series during this quadrennial, played as a trio during Gallant’s absence with lead Geoff Walker and third Mark Nichols each throwing an extra stone and were happy to have their second back.

“It’s great because the first two games we were not scrambling but you’re not used to playing with three guys,” Nichols said. “Having Brett out there as an extra set of eyes only makes us better.”

With Gallant in the lineup, Gushue scored a 7-2 victory over American John Shuster in the afternoon followed by a dicey 5-4 win over hometown hero John Epping during the evening draw.

The seesaw game went down to the wire all knotted up with Gushue needing to steal one without the hammer coming home.

“You don’t expect John to miss many of those,” Nichols said. “We were pretty lucky that we came out with a win there.

“We played a pretty much perfect end and we were lucky enough that he didn’t make that first one and same thing, lucky enough on that last,” he added. “We’re 3-1 now, get a good win tomorrow, or hopefully a good win tomorrow, and get ready for the playoffs.”

The teams forced each other to singles in one and two and again in three and four. Epping broke the 2-2 tie counting a couple in the fifth, but Gushue knotted it back up with a beauty runback double takeout for a deuce of his own.

Gushue made a pair of double takeouts in the seventh to bail his team out of trouble, however, Epping was able to blank and retain the hammer for the final frame.

Epping (1-3) couldn’t eliminate Gushue’s pesky shot rock in the four-foot circle as he missed a runback with his first skip stone and had to draw with his last. The rock wasn’t slowing down and Nichols capitalized to drag it far enough away.

“We got a little fortunate on John’s first for him to tick ours over and then take away that out-turn draw, which is kind of what he wanted to play at the end,” Nichols said. “We hadn’t played that in-turn side of the sheet the whole game. He’s a great drawer but he’s guessing a little bit there.

“Halfway down the sheet, it looked good but fortunately for us it was just a little too hard.”

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Elsewhere, Winnipeg’s Mike McEwen flipped the script from starting 0-2 to 2-2 following a 5-2 victory over Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

“We certainly could have played better yesterday but having said that, we had opportunities to win both games, good opportunities too,” said McEwen, who won his seventh GSOC title last month at the Princess Auto Elite 10. “We could have been 2-0 or 1-1 very easily versus 0-2.

“The thing that changed today is we raised our game. The games weren’t defined on one or two shots. We executed quite a bit better today. Had a better handle on the ice. That just took us two games to get to that point.”

It was binary code to start with McEwen getting one in the first followed by Jacobs blanking back-to-back ends before getting his single in four. McEwen took control in the second half with a deuce in five, held Jacobs to another lone point in six and tacked on two more in seven.

“It wasn’t that there weren’t stones in play, there were a couple simple ends but we had an opportunity to put a lot of pressure on him and he made a good shot for one,” McEwen said. “It was kind of a back-and-forth game but it felt like as soon as we got that two-point lead we were dictating the game and made some nice shots to hold the lead.

“I thought we executed really well. There were a couple of complicated ends but nothing major. There weren’t any big, huge, crooked numbers on the scoreboard. It was just a well thought out and well-played game.”

McEwen also picked up an 8-3 victory over city rival Jason Gunnlaugson during the Noon draw. Jacobs, the 2015 Players’ champion, dropped to a 1-3 record.

Calgary’s Kevin Koe (3-0) remained undefeated after scoring four in the eighth to come back and beat Shuster 8-5. The Olympic gold medallist Shuster (1-2) has switched the order playing third this week with vice Tyler George moving up to the skip spot.

Winnipeg’s Reid Carruthers clobbered Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher 9-4 to earn his first win of the tournament. Carruthers was already ahead by one when he wrapped things up early with a steal of four in the sixth end to bring out handshakes. Jeff Stoughton, who is filling in at third and calling the game for Team Carruthers, threw a perfect 100 percent.

Both teams hold 1-2 round-robin records.

Gunnlaugson drew his record level following an 8-4 victory over Scotland’s Bruce Mouat. The Tour Challenge Tier 2 champion Gunnlaugson and Mouat are even with identical 2-2 records.

The Players’ Championship features 12 of the top women’s teams and 12 of the top men’s teams in the world. Teams are split into two pools for round-robin play with the best eight overall qualifying for the weekend playoffs.

The GSOC’s Bonus Cup, awarded to the season men’s and women’s champions, will also be handed out following the conclusion of the Players’ Championship. Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones has clinched the title on the women’s side early after earning enough points by qualifying for the Players’ Championship playoffs with a 4-0 record.

Round-robin action resumes Friday at Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre at 8:30 a.m. ET. Television coverage continues at Noon ET on Sportsnet with online streaming available at Sportsnet NOW (Canada) and Yare TV (international).