Two Nipawin Hawks victories over the Melfort Mustangs have set both teams for a highly exciting end to the regular season.
They wrap up their seasons on the road March 7, with serious playoff implications on the line.
The Hawks travel to Flin Flon holding a two point lead on the Bombers for the Sherwood Division crown and second place in the league, but a Flin Flon regulation win would vault the Bombers ahead of the Hawks as they hold the tiebreaker.
Leading into that game, Doug Johnson, Nipawin’s coach, notes it will have a small game seven feel to it but said what is important for his players is that they stay even keel, win or lose.
“We know at the end of the day we’re going to be in playoffs, we’re going to have home ice in the first round, we just don’t know if we’re going to have home ice for the second round... so it’s not like a Game 7 where if we lose, we’re done,” he said.
“We still have to really appreciate what we accomplished this year and what we’re hoping to accomplish in playoffs when it’s all said and done.”
The Hawks will be in tough in that matchup as they take on a Bombers team that has dominated the season series winning six of the seven games, but Johnson said most of those game came before his team started playing their best hockey and said he expects this time to be different.
“The last two times we played them we were 1-1,” he said, noting the one loss came when the Hawks threw just 19 hits and turned the puck over 38 times.
“Those are season high turnover amounts and season low hit amounts. So it was just one of those games where we just weren’t very good... we know we can be better and make it a game.”
Mustangs’ stakes high
The stakes are higher for the Mustangs as they visit the Humboldt Broncos, needing a point or a Melville Millionaires loss of any kind to clinch the tenth and final playoff spot.
“It’s one game now for our season. We’re not looking for anyone to do us any favors. We’ve got to try to win it the right way and we [got to] control it. We’ve just got to get the result that we want and get the win and then all is forgotten. It’s a brand new season,” said Trevor Blevins, Melfort’s coach.
“We’re going to need everybody pulling [March 7], that’s for sure, and contributing in every sort of way. Not just on the score sheet, but shift by shift.”
The Mustangs come into the game with some confidence as they have a 1-0-1 record in Humboldt this season, including a dominant performance in a shootout loss, so the key will be to use that confidence, noted Blevins.
“At worst, we have to find a point and that’s the one thing we need. But you want to draw on those experiences for sure and hopefully we can take the confidence and the experience from that and execute.”
