Considering they played their first five games on the road, the Estevan TS&M Bruins are more than happy with their 4-1 start to the regular season.
"I don't think we necessarily saw the upper end of our league by any stretch, but it's nice to get off to a hot start. It's nice to see the balance in our scoring, too," said Bruins head coach Tom Copeland after the team won two of three games on a northern road swing on the weekend.
The bantam AA club started the weekend with a 4-1 win over the Saskatoon Stallions on Friday. They then defeated the Saskatoon Outlaws 7-4 before losing 4-1 to the Prince Albert Raiders Sunday.
The Bruins also blanked the Notre Dame Hounds on Oct. 1.
"It puts a lot of pressure on a lot of other teams, but at the same time, it's no secret, other teams are going to come after us. That's what happened on Sunday," Copeland said.
In Friday's game, he said aside from Jake Leschyshyn, the son of former NHL defenceman Curtis, the Stallions didn't bring much to the table.
"We started slow for the first five minutes, but after that it was our game to have. They brought it to us, but they didn't have a lot of scoring touch. We had a couple of fluky goals."
The Stallions opened the scoring less than three minutes in on a goal by Braden Krzak.
After that it was all Estevan, beginning with two goals in the first period. Brady Long tied the game on a power play nine minutes in, and Josh Skjonsby gave the Bruins the lead at the 11:13 mark.
Wyatt Haux had the Bruins' lone goal in the second, coming nearly nine minutes in, and Cole Fonstad closed out the scoring at 6:41 of the third.
On Saturday, the line of Hayden Cutler, Shae Little and Preston Brodziak led the way against the Outlaws, combining for nine points.
"We were really happy with it," Copeland said of the scoring outburst. "I don't even know what to say, we mixed the lines up a little bit on Saturday to try to get a little bit more balance and it worked out really well."
Cutler scored twice in the first half of the opening period, with Saskatoon's Noah Bazowsky replying on a power play at the 15:43 mark. But it took virtually no time for Estevan to strike back, with Little making it 3-1 just seven seconds later.
Brendan Carey drew the Outlaws within a goal at 3:42 of the second period, but the Bruins would get a pair of goals from Kale Martens later in the frame, one coming on a power play, to take a 5-2 lead after 40 minutes.
Brayden Pachal added another tally with the man advantage at 5:28 of the third, followed by Saskatoon goals from Tyson Novakoski and Evan Thomas.
Brodziak closed out the scoring with 18 seconds to play.
The Bruins suffered their first loss on Sunday in Prince Albert, with three Raider goals in a span of 1:47 late in the first period proving the difference.
"They're a nice club. i would bet they end up in the top four of the league. They're big, they're strong, we haven't seen a team like that yet this year. A lot of the things we're trying to do, they were doing very well," Copeland said of the Raiders.
"There's about five minutes we want back and if we get those five minutes back, it's a totally different game it was after two pretty hard games and the kids have played a lot of hockey. Those three games and all that travelling, it didn't necessarily take a toll on them physically, but they were tired mentally."
Owen Ozar scored the first goal 12 minutes in, followed by markers from Brendl Daniels and Kyle Schneider.
"All of a sudden they had three goals before we could even blink. That killed us. We just kinda got away from it for five minutes," Copeland said.
Prince Albert extended their lead late in the second, with Landon Markovich scoring 14 minutes in.
The Bruins got on the board about two minutes later, courtesy of a Carson Benning goal at 16:28.
After scoring 18 goals in four games last week, Copeland said the balanced scoring attack was crucial.
"You gotta have it with the way we're going to play. Teams are going to focus on Cole (Fonstad), I think. Cole's got a reputation that he can score. If you don't go out there and show some kind of secondary scoring, it makes it too easy to focus on Cole. That's why I think the games where we're going to be successful are the games where we get secondary scoring."
Copeland added that the Bruins played well in their own end on the road swing.
"The strength of our game has to be playing defensively and we showed that. There's a lot of things we want to work on, but we did a really good job of limiting teams on the inside."
With Estevan's bantam AA teams not having a lot of success in recent years, Copeland said the desire to win is immediately apparent with this year's club.
"I haven't been around too many teams like this where the kids are a team. All they want to do is win. They don't want anybody telling them that they can't. There's not one kid in that room that feels better than the other, they just all want to win."
The Bruins' home opener is Saturday against Humboldt. Game time is 5:15 p.m. at Affinity Place.
