The Nipawin Hawks enjoyed a terrific special teams effort on both sides of the ice, riding to their first win of the season.
The Hawks knocked off the Flin Flon Bombers in Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League action at the Whitney Forum in Flin Flon on Sept. 22 finishing the night 2-for-6 with the man advantage and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill, which was huge, noted Doug Johnson, the Hawks’ head coach.
“You win the special teams battle and a lot of games, you’re going to win just through that because 5-on-5 the margin for error is not very big. But on the power play you can really change things and that’s what we were able to do.”
After spending a week leading up to the game working on a power play that coming into the game was 0-for-12 with the man advantage, Johnson noted the Hawks were able to do the little things well including breaking the puck out, getting pucks to the net and winning faceoffs, which made a huge difference.
“It wasn’t anything fancy, it was just being more efficient and simplifying things more than anything.”
The Hawks scored the lone goal of the first period on the power play as Logan Casavant scored his second of the season to stake the Hawks out to a 1-1 lead.
The two teams traded second period goals, as Chrystopher Collin got the Bombers on the board at 9:42, but a late second period goal off the stick of Jake Tremblay put the Hawks back in front heading to the third.
The Hawks carried that momentum into the early part of the third period as Michael Grant scored his third of the season just 55 seconds into the period on a power play, and Josh Laferriere extended the Hawks’ lead to 4-1 with his first of the season at 8:23.
The Bombers cut the Hawks lead to two just over four minutes later, but an empty net goal by Brett Harasymuk put the game away for the Hawks.
Jake Anthony picked up his first win of the season in his first career SJHL start as he turned aside 37 of the 39 shots he faced.
After struggling in their first two games, Johnson was pleased with how the Hawks responded, noting that their power play was better, and their goaltending was good.
“It was just a more complete effort all the way around.”
