On Friday, they were badly outplayed by the Battlefords North Stars and won. The next night, they doubled the Kindersley Klippers in shots and lost.
None of it made any sense, but the CanElson Drilling Estevan Bruins will take the three points.
The Bruins extended their winning streak to five games with a 3-2 shootout victory over the Stars, but it ended Saturday with a 2-1 overtime loss to the Klippers. They had also edged the Yorkton Terriers 3-2 in overtime on Oct. 29.
"I'm proud of the guys. They battled through some adversity and they've got nothing to hang their heads about," said head coach and general manager Chris Lewgood following the loss to Kindersley.
The Bruins had to kill off three penalties handed out in a span of 50 seconds early in the third period just to get to overtime, resulting in a full two-minute 5-on-3 for Kindersley. They included a contentious hitting from behind penalty on Corey Kosloski and a cross-checking call on Brett Blatz that Lewgood described as terrible.
"In fairness to the referee, it was a huge dive. The player sold it really well and it was very obvious from my angle that it was a dive.
Unfortunately, the referee wasn't standing where I was and he may not have been able to see it from where he was. I was disappointed in the call, disappointed a player would do that. That's not how we like to win hockey games, that's for sure. It was a blatant dive in my opinion. I thought to put our guys down on an extended 5-on-3 like that, I was shocked."
Giovanni Bombini would win it for the Klippers 3:53 into overtime, deking netminder Matt Gibney stick side on a break.
Tristan Sieben scored Kindersley's lone regulation goal just 44 seconds into the contest. Wyatt Garagan tied the game less than four minutes into the third period, pinpointing a shot off the left post and past Klippers goalie Evan Weninger.
That was the only goal Weninger surrendered on 52 shots in a spectacular outing.
Still, Lewgood said his club could have given the tender a tougher job, noting that "we threw too much right at him."
The coach added that with the Klippers sitting at 10-2-1 entering the game, his players "gave them a little too much respect in the first five minutes" but settled in after that.
On Friday, meanwhile, Austin Daae fired home a bouncing centring pass from Lynnden Pastachak with three seconds left in regulation to force overtime in a game Daae acknowledged was a bullet dodged.
"I think we were pretty lucky tonight, to be quite honest," he said.
"(Zach Douglas) threw it back down low. I was up high, so I looked and there were eight seconds left. Then I was just praying Pasta would throw it out and I got pretty good wood on it and I think it clipped his shoulder a bit and just got the top corner," Daae said of the tying goal.
Austin Roesslein scored the shootout winner in the eighth round.
Lewgood's evaluation of his team's effort was not flattering either.
"We played literally just good enough to win. That type of effort doesn't win you games very often. Like I said to the guys, good teams find a way to win, but you just can't make a habit of winning that way."
Hudson Morrison had the Bruins' other goal late in the second period.
Ben Greenaway gave the Stars their first lead five minutes into the game when he threw the puck in front of the net and it went off a player and in.
Reed Delainey made it 2-0 just 55 seconds into the middle frame, putting a rebound past Bruins starter Brett Lewchuk moments after a Douglas giveaway kept the puck in the zone.
Meanwhile, the Bruins had a flurry of player personnel moves last week, most notably the acquisition of 20-year-old defenceman Tanner Clark from the OCN Blizzard (MJHL).
Clark, a former Flin Flon Bomber and Humboldt Bronco, was the futures from the Roger Tagoona trade last season. The Blizzard fought to keep Clark because he was not with the team at the time of the trade, but after both sides made their case before the Canadian Junior Hockey League, he became Bruins property.
"To be honest, this process began close to a month ago and we've been battling in the boardrooms on the wording of the futures deal," Lewgood said.
The Rosetown native has 12 points in 16 games with OCN this year, and had 58 points over the last two seasons in Flin Flon.
"He's a big strong guy, moves the puck really well, that's something we can stand to improve on and he's a natural defenceman who can quarterback our power play," Lewgood said, noting that Kosloski can move back up front on the power play now.
The deal puts Estevan back at nine 20-year-olds. They had dealt defenceman Leighton McLachlan to Nipawin on Thursday to deal with precisely that issue after adding rearguard Nick Egan recently, but now they are up to nine again.
"He's a guy we certainly weren't happy about having to move, because he's such a quality character guy, but when we stacked them up, he was the odd man out," Lewgood said of trading McLachlan.
Ben Johnstone strained a joint in his shoulder on Saturday, which buys the team some time to decide on which 20-year-old to move out.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old left winger Darcy DeRoose left the team to join the WHL's Everett Silvertips last week.
