After a ten-day Christmas break across the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, the Nipawin Hawks and Melfort Mustangs returned to the ice to engage in a home-and-home series.
At Melfort, Dec. 30
After the long layoff, the two teams played a wild first period in Melfort as the teams combined for six goals.
The Hawks jumped out to an early lead as Eric Bolden scored at 7:25 in his first game back from Elmira College.
Brett Harasymuk scored his 12th goal of the season just 3:26 later as he beat Mustangs netminder Evan Plotnik, while shorthanded, to extend the Hawks’ lead to two goals.
After a slow start, the Mustangs came alive scoring three times in 1:44 as Dakota Boutin got the Mustangs on the board with his 14th of the season before Reed Gunville and Tanner Zentner scored 12 seconds apart to give the Mustangs a 3-2 lead.
The Hawks would not go away as Michael Grant scored his 10th of the season, while on the power play at 18:01 sending the game into the first intermission tied at three.
During the intermission, Doug Johnson, the Hawks’ head coach, noted that the message to the players was simple, get back to playing a more structurally sound game.
Looking at two goals that made their way to the back of their net, Johnson said, they were still in pond hockey mode.
“We had the positioning on our man and gave up the middle and as soon as you start giving up the middle in hockey bad things usually happen and it did for us and then we just had to limit the turnovers.”
The game settled down after the first period as neither team managed any offense through scoreless second and third periods, sending the game to overtime tied at three.
In the extra session Hawks Captain Carter Doerksen scored his second goal of the season giving the Hawks a 4-3 overtime win, extending their win streak to five games.
Kristian Stead was solid between the pipes turning aside 23 of the 26 shots he faced to pick up the win, while Plotnik was charged with the loss giving up four goals on 38 shots.
Despite the loss, Trevor Blevins, the Mustangs’ head coach, was pleased with how his team played.
“The second and third period was some quality hockey really for us. I thought it was huge for us to come back.”
For Johnson, the key to picking up the win was the players returning to the more structurally sound system that has made the Hawks successful for much of the season.
“They sacrificed a lot of the selfish plays to make the good team plays. We generated offense, I thought we played very well defensively and we had a high work ethic.”
At Nipawin, Dec. 31.
The two teams returned to action the following night in Nipawin for the back half of the home-and-home.
The Hawks dominated play in the first period, outshooting the Mustangs 9-3, and were rewarded early as Josh McDougall scored his sixth goal of the season on the power play at 4:50.
The Mustangs responded with a goal of their own as Boutin scored his team high 15th goal of the season at 17:28 to tie the score at one.
With time winding down in the period, Nicholas Riemer buried his first goal of the season on the power play at 19:32 giving the Hawks a 2-1 lead after one period.
The Hawks used the momentum gained by the late goal in the first to their advantage in the second period as Keegan Kjargaard found the back of the net for his 12th goal of the season to give the Hawks a 3-1 lead.
The Hawks continued to press the Mustangs as Josh Bly scored his 10th of the year at 5:13 on the power play and Grant Baetsen scored his eighth of the year at 8:53 to give the Hawks a commanding 5-1 lead heading into the final period.
Blevins was disappointed with the undisciplined play of the Mustangs, which contributed to the lopsided score after two periods.
“We took some penalties that we didn’t need to take. Nipawin’s power play is very effective at home and they took advantage.”
The Mustangs would not quit in the third however, as they outshot the Hawks 8-2 and got a pair of early goals from Andrew Thompson at :49 and from Boutin at 1:21 both on the power play to cut the Hawks’ lead to 5-3.
The Mustangs continued pressing but could not get any closer as they dropped a tough 5-3 decision.
Stead was steady in the Hawks’ goal again picking up his 15th win of the season turning aside 15 shots, while Derrick Hucul was charged with the loss in the Mustangs’ goal after giving up five goals on 22 shots.
The game was a wild affair between two arch rivals as the teams combined for 66 penalty minutes and 17 power plays, with the Mustangs finishing the evening 2/8 and the Hawks 3/9.
“That game showed the intensity between these two teams and showed some of the good stuff, some of the bad stuff between the rivalry,” said Johnson.
Despite the loss, Blevins was once again pleased to see his team bounce back from a deficit, noting that they tried to come back but ran out of time, as they were done in by their undisciplined play.
“We were very strong against them throughout the night. Territorially neither team was really dominating but I thought the difference was the 5-on-3’s and the power plays we were giving up for sure.”
Johnson agreed with Blevins, noting that their power play was a major factor in the game but said he liked how his team played throughout the game.
“Did we make some mistakes? Yeah, but we made sure that one mistake didn’t lead to two, didn’t lead to three in the sequence,” said Johnson, who noted that they had their own discipline issues to finish the second and start off the third.
“We got undisciplined and let Melfort back into the game and made it a much closer game than it needed to be.”
Next week for Mustangs
With the two losses, the Mustangs’ record fell to 15-16-2-4 on the season, good enough for eighth in the league, five points behind the Hawks and Broncos for fourth.
The Mustangs now look ahead to a quiet week with just one game on the schedule as they welcome the Yorkton Terriers to the Northern Lights Palace on Jan. 4.
With the Terriers coming into the game having played the night before Blevins said the key will be to jump on them early and take advantage of being well rested.
Next week for Hawks
With the two wins, the Hawks improve their record to 19-10-2-1 on the season and slide into a fourth place tie with the idle Humboldt Broncos, with the Hawks holding five games in hand.
The Hawks have a busy week as they welcome the Terriers to town on Jan. 3 before playing a weekend home-and-home against the Broncos starting in Humboldt on Jan. 6 before playing at home on Jan. 7.
With the Broncos having not played in nearly three weeks, by the time the Hawks play them, Johnson said it will be important to have a good start but said he expects the Broncos will be ready to play.
“The players at this level, they’re usually pretty hungry and pretty competitive... Hopefully we catch them on an off night but we’re not counting on that. We’re just counting on putting a good game plan together and playing our type of hockey.”
