The Nipawin Hawks continued rolling right along and preserved their lead atop the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Sherwood Division with a 4-2 victory over the visiting Estevan Bruins.
Eric Bolden scored a pair of goals during the Feb. 25 game for the Hawks, scoring once in the first and once in the second, while Grant Baetsen and Tanner Thompson added third period goals for the win.
The Hawks’ penalty kill let the team down as they gave up two goals on three opportunities including two in the first period to put the Hawks behind 2-1.
“I think that Friday night was such an emotional game and especially in the first period, we let our foot off the gas a little bit. And credit to Estevan: they took advantage of some net front battles that we lost and our forwards were not willing to get down and block shots on their power play,” said Doug Johnson, the head coach.
Despite going into the third period tied at two, the Hawks were dominating the game as they held a 33-14 edge in shots on goal, which gave the Hawks confidence they could complete the comeback, said Johnson.
“I thought we had them on their heels. We just wanted to make sure that we didn’t give up that one easy break for them. We wanted to play very tight defensively and make sure that when we got the puck, we didn’t turn it over,” he said.
“I thought the third period we played as well as we could have and obviously came away with the W.”
With the Hawks still clinging to a two-point lead atop the division, they run into their rivals, the Melfort Mustangs, who have plenty of their own games left to play for.
“We’ll share what Melfort does well but at the end of the day we have to control the pace of play. We want to dictate the terms of the game and if we do that, we’ll be fine,” said Johnson.
Also this week: Battlefords defeat places Hawks in first for division
