The road has not been kind to the Yorkton RawTec Maulers this season.
The Maulers, 15-8-1 heading into SMAAAHL action this weekend, were just 5-6 away from the Farrell Agencies Arena before their weekend tilts in Saskatoon and Prince Albert that saw the Maulers go 1-1, first dropping a narrow 2-1 decision to the Contacts on Saturday before earning a 3-2 win on Sunday over the Mintos.
The two results give Yorkton a 16-9-1 record for 33 points, one back of fourth place Prince Albert (16-7-2), four points back of both Moose Jaw (17-6-3) and the Notre Dame Hounds (18-8-1) and eight behind the league-leading Regina Pat Canadians (19-4-3).
The 33 points put the Maulers three ahead of sixth place Tisdale (13-9-4), while Beardy’s (12-11-2) sits in seventh with 26 points.
Battlefords (10-13-3) and the Contacts (11-17-1) are tied for the eighth and final playoff spot with 23 points, one ahead of the Saskatoon Blazers (11-14-0), while the Notre Dame Argos (7-13-3) and Swift Current (5-20-1) are well back in 11th and 12th with 17 and 11 points respectively.
Stopped in ‘Stoon
On Saturday evening the RawTec Maulers were in Saskatoon to take on the Contacts with the hopes that they’d finally do away with their road woes.
The Maulers dominated the first period of play outshooting the Contacts 17-8; however they could not solve Saskatoon goaltender Isaac LaBelle and after 20 minutes the game remained scoreless.
The first half of the second period was just as uneventful as the first 20 minutes until Austin Shumanski was given a five minute major and a game misconduct for boarding with 11:43 of the middle frame.
The penalty resulted in the Contacts taking the lead on a Xavier LaBelle power play goal to make it 1-0 with 8:17 remaining in the period.
Another Contact power play marker, this one off the stick of Eric McNeilly, made it 2-0 with just two minutes left in the second period; a lead that would last until the final minute of the third period when Damian Bentz would break the Isaac LaBelle shutout bid with his 17th goal of the season to round out the scoring in a 2-1 Yorkton loss.
Maulers head coach Graham Garrett said that the Shumanski major in the second period was a game changer and that when it happened it was tough to bounce back from. “We got a tough call for a major penalty on Shumanski that they were able to score once on and that left us shorthanded two defencemen,” mentioned Garrett, noting that the Maulers were already without defenceman Tyler Stratechuk. “So when Shumanski went out we had to put Sperling (Keanan Sperling) back on defence from the forward position and he did a good job filling in.”
Sunday win
Sunday saw the RawTec Maulers looking to rebound against the Prince Albert Mintos.
The Maulers got off to a good start Sunday afternoon as Drayson Skulmoski opened the scoring early on when he put his sixth of the season past Derrick Hucul for a 1-0 Yorkton lead.
A Beau Stevenson marker with 14:07 remaining in the second period gave Yorkton a 2-0 lead, but a late second period power play marker by Erik Gardiner brought the Mintos to within one after 40 minutes of play.
Prince Albert’s Kyle Schneider struck 7:44 into the final frame to even the game at two, but the Maulers regained the lead with 2:28 remaining in the third period on Bentz’s second goal in as many nights, this one of the power play variety for a 3-2 Yorkton advantage.
With the goalie pulled the Mintos looked to tie the game once again, but Yorkton’s Jordan Schmuland kept the puck out of the net with several key saves late for a 3-2 Maulers victory.
Hucul shouldered the loss for the Mintos stopping 18-of-21 shots while Schmuland picked up the win turning aside 27-of-29 Minto attempts in what coach Garrett believes was his best game of the season. “He made some saves of the spectacular variety,” offered Garrett on his goaltender. “He stopped breakaways and in-tight shots and rebounds and when we weren’t there he was and he probably played his best game to date and he’s played a lot of good ones so that’s saying something for Sunday’s game.
“He’s a huge part of our win.”
Another large part of the win, at least according to Garrett, was Keanan Sperling, who, for the second straight game played defence despite being a forward. “That’s something that allows guys an opportunity to make hockey teams,” mentioned the Mauler bench boss, continuing, “We knew that at some point in the year there would probably be a time that we needed a guy to be able to play on the backend and sometimes we don’t have the ability to call up AP’s, and that was one of the reasons why he made the team in the fall and it paid dividends on Sunday.”
Up next
The next action for the Yorkton RawTec Maulers will be this weekend when they host the Beardy’s Blackhawks for a pair of games. Game One goes Saturday at 8:00p.m. with Game Two Sunday with a 2:00p.m. puck drop.
Both games are at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
