On Friday, the Yorkton Terriers demonstrated exactly why they finished in first place in the Sherwood Conference.
The next night, the CanElson Drilling Estevan Bruins made it clear they have no intention of rolling over.
The two clubs are tied 1-1 in the Sherwood Conference semis after the Terriers won the opener 6-1 in Yorkton and the Bruins came back with a 5-2 victory on Saturday at Spectra Place.
Game 3 was last night in Yorkton and Game 4 is tomorrow in Estevan. Game 5 goes Saturday in Yorkton. Games 6 and 7, if necessary, will run Sunday and Tuesday in Estevan and Yorkton, respectively. All games start at 7:30 p.m. except on Sunday, when puck drop is at 6 p.m.
The Bruins advanced to the conference semifinals after ousting the Kindersley Klippers from the survivor series in four games with a 4-1 win on March 6.
On Saturday, coming off a painful Game 1 loss, the Bruins did virtually everything they failed to do the night before.
"(Friday) we were kind of waiting to see what they were doing, but (Saturday) I think we really brought the game to them," said Bruins centre Alex Cote.
"We were a little harder on our forecheck, took advantage of our opportunities and kept our feet moving in our own zone, which really benefited us in terms of being able to stop their cycle and get a clean breakout," added head coach Keith Cassidy.
It helped that the Bruins struck on the first shift of the game, with Calder Neufeld cashing in a Hudson Morrison rebound only 15 seconds in.
"Getting that first goal, I know that's gotta give the guys confidence. You try to keep a level head as much as you can, but for the younger guys, I think it's great to see a goal on the first shift. It gets them in the game and gets them going, thinking that we can do this, so I think that was huge for us," said right winger Dylan Smith.
"The nice thing about that goal is it wasn't a pretty goal. It was an ugly playoff goal and we're going to need more of those," Cassidy said of Neufeld's tally.
The Bruins dictated the pace for the bulk of the first period, but the Terriers managed to tie it up before the buzzer, with Kailum Gervais putting in a rebound with one minute left.
"It was about a foot and a half offside, and that's disappointing and frustrating to play through, but we did," Cassidy said.
Cote put Estevan on top again midway through the second period, taking a feed from Smith off the rush and beating goalie Dawson MacAuley with a low stick side shot.
The Bruins took control of the game for good later in the period, when Smith and Tanner Froese scored a pair of power play goals 13 seconds apart.
Smith converted a backdoor pass from Neufeld at 14:35 on a two-man advantage, and that was followed by Froese intercepting a clearing attempt by MacAuley and putting it in the net.
"When they get scored on twice that quick, it really shuts them down. It just gave us an extra boost and it really knocked them out of the game, I think," said Smith.
Devon McMullen got Yorkton within two early in the third, deking goalie Curtis Martinu two minutes in.
But Smith would counter only two minutes later, with a power play goal on a Cole Olson feed to stave off any comeback bid.
It was a different story on Friday at the Farrell Agencies Arena in Yorkton, as the home side scored twice less than a minute apart early in the first period.
Josh Ellis snuck a shot past Martinu from a bad angle on the left wing at 3:38.
Just 57 seconds later, Martinu couldn't hang onto a Tayler Thompson shot with his glove, and the puck fell to the ice, allowing Patrick Martens to poke it in.
"You get those two quick ones on us and it gets you down pretty quick," said Smith. "You're coming into the series as pretty big underdogs playing the top team in the south, and you get two goals scored on you quick"
At the 14:31 mark, Cote created a turnover and dished the puck across to Smith for the Bruins' first goal.
But Yorkton responded before the buzzer, with Gervais scoring on a centring pass from Tyler Giebel at 16:41.
The Terriers took complete control with two goals late in the second period. Ellis fired a shot home from the doorstep on a power play at 17:50, and only 64 seconds later, Martens put in his own rebound to make it 5-1.
Curtis Oliver scored from the top of the left circle on a power play at 16:41 of the third to close out the scoring.
Morrison suffered an arm injury on Saturday after being boarded by Dylan Baer, but Cassidy hinted that he would likely play in Game 3.
"I think everybody's going to be going next game. It's going to take a whole lot to keep somebody out of the lineup," he said.
"We're going to be playing hurt, we're going to be playing nicked up, and the further we go, the worse that gets. We're trying to prepare them for that. (Assistant coach) Cole (Zahn) and I have been down that road. There are not a lot of guys in there that have, at this level, been down that particular road. We're starting to find out about it first-hand right now."
