The Yorkton Terriers played three games in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League over the past week, as the fight for playoff contention continues. They added one win to their record, but took two losses.
Last Tuesday, the Terriers hosted the Weyburn Redwings on home ice. The game ended in favour of the Red Wings with a final score of 7-4.
In the first period, the Red Wings scored three unanswered goals. The second period saw the Terriers’ Jordan Ross score one goal, with assists from Corwin Stevely and Dexter Robinson. The Red Wings also racked up another.
The third period saw the Terriers fight hard and add another three goals to the board. Two goals came from Jared Legien. The first was assisted by Jordan Ross and Dakota Odgers, and the second was assisted by Kaleb Bell and Dexter Robinson. Reid Anderson also scored for the Terriers, with an assist from Matthew Perkins.
After the game, Terriers’ assistant coach Mat Hehr said the game portrayed the recent struggle the Terriers have been having: a slow first period.
“I think more shots on net is going to help,” said Hehr. “We’ll definitely work on it in practice and work on getting tougher, and going to the tougher areas.”
On Friday, the Terriers traveled to Fort Qu’Appelle to face the Notre Dame Hounds in a neutral site game.
The slow first period streak came to an end when Jordan Hudson scored only two minutes into the first period, with the assist from Carson Welke. This put the Terriers on the board, and the score would remain at 1-0 until the third period.
In the third, the Hounds took advantage of a power play and scored to tie the game just one minute into play. But in the last five minutes, the Terriers’ Dakota Odgers connected with the back of the net off of a pass from Reid Anderson. This goal gave the Terriers the lead, and eventually the win. The final score was 2-1 for the Terriers.
The next night, the Terriers hosted the Weyburn Red Wings again at the Farrell Agencies Arena. But it would be another loss for Yorkton.
Although the Terriers got on the board first after a beautiful breakaway goal by Matthew Perkins that was set up by Regan Seiferling, Weyburn would rack up another four goals before the end of the game.
It was a tough 4-1 loss for the Terriers, as it pushed them farther behind the Red Wings in their division standings. The Red Wings now sit in second place in the Viterra division with 49 points and the Terriers are in third place with 46.
Looking at the league standings overall, the Terriers are in eighth place. They are only one point behind Kindersley in seventh, and three points behind Weyburn who holds the sixth place spot.
The next action for the Terriers is a two-game series against the highway ten rivals, the Melville Millionaires. The series kicks off in Melville on Friday night, and then comes to Yorkton on Saturday night, where the puck will drop at 7:30 p.m.
The Terriers lead the season series over the Millionaires four games to two, and their match ups have been some of the most exciting games of the season with a high number of both pentalty minutes and goals.
