The Estevan Bruins' season-opening slide continued on Tuesday as they lost 2-1 in overtime to the Melfort Mustangs.
It was a game that could have been seen as a golden opportunity to pick up the first win of the year against a team that was a doormat last year.
However, the Mustangs played a fantastic road game and did not look like a last-place club at all. A goalie duel between Curtis Martinu and Patrick Johnson kept the game in a stalemate until Melfort's Jarett Zentner had his pass attempt go off a skate and into the net with 23 seconds left in OT.
It was definitely a bounce-back effort for Martinu, who made some big saves and looked a lot more poised in the net. I noticed his positioning in particular was excellent. It was nice to see him have a big game after a tough start to his tenure in Estevan.
(Speaking of which - Steven Glass is scheduled to undergo arthroscopic surgery on his injured knee on Monday. It's basically an exploratory procedure to determine what the problem is. Depending on what they find, he could be anywhere from a few days to possibly months from returning).
Calder Neufeld opened the scoring for the Bruins 3:20 into the second period, with a shot off the post and in.
Only 4:24 later, Brandon Formosa sent a nice pass across to Brandon Sloan from the boards and Sloan redirected a low shot past Martinu. That was it for the scoring summary until Zentner's overtime winner.
There was some great goaltending in this game, with Martinu giving us a glimpse of what he can do and Patrick Johnson showing why he's gotten a lot of WHL interest the last couple of years. Johnson was once a hot prospect in the Kindersley organization and now he's showing us why. I believe he could definitely be an SJHL starter right now.
Johnson's best stop of the night, and perhaps an early save of the year candidate, came in the first period when Bruins defenceman Zach Douglas joined the rush and took a backdoor pass on the left side. It was a lot like Nick Weiss's second goal on Friday, except Johnson somehow got across and made a ridiculous pad save.
People will look at this game and say the Bruins should have beaten Melfort. They're right. Now the team has to go into a long three-game road trip up north, still looking for their first win.
Still, they didn't play badly last night. I thought it was their best game yet. They just didn't finish on a few plays where they should have scored. The power play struggled, and a big reason was continually trying to pull off the backdoor play that worked last year. The PP needs to utilize the points more.
The Bruins are now looking at a trip to Nipawin, La Ronge and Humboldt this weekend where they'll probably have to win at least two to reclaim some ground in the standings.
