It was a long time coming but the Humboldt Broncos finally won on the road.
After going 25 games without a win on the road the Broncos finished the week with a pair of road wins to book end their season with a 2-0 start and a 2-0 finish on the road.
In the middle was a mind blowing 0-24-1 stretch that seriously hurt their playoff aspirations.
Broncos Head Coach Darcy Haugan admitted the lengthy losing streak was not easy on anyone and was happy to see it end.
“That was weighing pretty heavily on everybody within the organization. I give full marks to our guys, they stuck with it and they kept putting the work in and we knew eventually we’d be rewarded so it was nice to see the guys get rewarded.”
The Broncos went on the road on Mar. 1 to play the top team in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, the Battlefords North Stars.
The North Stars came out of the gate flying picking up a pair of first period goals and out shooting the Broncos 15-6.
The Broncos continued battling in the second period and were rewarded for their effort as Trevor Posch and Chris Van Os-Shaw found the back of the net.
A late lapse in the period cost the Broncos as the North Stars scored a shorthanded goal and a power play goal less than a minute apart to take a 4-2 lead into the intermission.
The North Stars iced the game in the final minute of the third period with an empty net goal.
The Broncos were simply overmatched by the North Stars as they dropped the game 5-2 and were outshot 45-22.
The Broncos were back in action the following night, Mar. 2, when they traveled to Kindersley to take on the Klippers.
The Klippers scored the lone goal to grab a 1-0 lead after the first period.
The Broncos responded in the second period with a pair of goals off the sticks of Andrew Thompson and Landon Markovitch, who got his first career Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League goal to take a 2-1 lead into the third period.
With a chance to get their first road win since Sept. 25, the Broncos came out flying in the third as Posch scored twice and Michael Korol added another to give the Broncos a 5-1 lead at the midway mark of the period.
Some penalty trouble nearly hurt the Broncos as the Klippers scored a pair of goals two minutes apart to cut the Broncos lead to a pair.
Another penalty gave the Klippers a chance to really make a game of it but could not score.
Posch added his third goal of the game in the final minute into an empty net to give the Broncos the illusive road win 6-3 over the Klippers.
The final game of their regular season came in Yorkton on Mar. 5.
The first period saw the Broncos start very slowly but were bailed out by goalie Carter Seminuk who made 19 saves in the period to keep the game scoreless after the first.
The Terriers continued pressing for the opening goal in the second period and were finally able to beat Seminuk at 9:04.
Two minutes later the Terriers scored again to take a 2-0 lead. Late in the period the Broncos got some life thanks to a Laramie Kostelansky goal that cut the lead to 2-1 after the second period.
In the third period, Broncos forward Wesley Shipton took over scoring three goals in a row to give them a 4-2 lead with under six minutes to play. The Terriers did not quit however as they cut the Broncos lead to a single goal two minutes later.
With the net empty Posch gave the Broncos their two goal lead back to reach the 20-goal plateau.
A late Terriers goal made the final minute interesting but Seminuk and the Broncos did not allow the tying goal as the Broncos escaped Yorkton with a 5-4 win and a two game winning streak to end the season.
Haugan was very pleased with his teams resiliency down the stretch mentioning that in every game this week and even dating back to the Melville game on Feb. 26, the Broncos found themselves behind and managed to come back and tie the score in all four including three where they completed the comeback.
That resiliency was not always there for the Broncos earlier in the year.
“I think that early on in the season if we ever gave up the first goal a lot of times that was the end of the game for us. We didn’t have that ability to come back so full marks to our guys. I’m very proud of them in the way that they finished,” Haugan said.
The Broncos now go home for the summer and the coaching staff begins their work towards building a team for next year. The Broncos return to action in September.
