The post Christmas season opened with a pair of losses for the Yorkton Terriers as their Highway 10 rivals, the Melville Millionaires, claimed a pair of wins in the home and home series over the weekend.
The Mils claimed a 4-1 win at home Friday night to close out 2011 despite being outshot 46-36 by the visiting Terriers.
Tyson Newell opened the scoring in the first period. Michael Sagen and John Stechyshyn added a pair in the second period. Newell capped Melville scoring with his second goal of the night, an empty net powerplay marker, in the final frame.
Jeremy Johnson scored Yorkton's lone goal late in the third period assisted by Kyle McLeod and Curtis Oliver.
The Millionaires claimed a 3-2 shootout win at the Farrell Agencies Arena to open 2012 Sunday afternoon, despite being outshot 49-27 by the Terriers who battled to tie the game at the end of regulation time.
Russell Trudeau opend the scoring for Melville late in the first period to take a 1-0 lead to the dressing rooms after 20 minutes.
Tayler Thompson tied the game for Yorkton just under two minutes into the second period assisted by Jamie Vlanich.
Michael Desjarlais scored late in the period to hand a one goal lead back to the Mils.
Just when it appeared that the Millionaires would come away with the win, Devon McMullen tied the game to send it into overtime assisted by Brent Struble and Zak Majkowski.
Ian McNulty and Desjarlais both slipped the puck by Terrier netminder Warren Shymko while Melville goalie Blake Voth stood his ground to shut down Tyler Giebel and Thompson to clinch the shootout win for the Millionaires.
Terrier head coach Trent Cassan praised Melville netminder Voth for playing well both nights and frustrating Terriers scoring opportunities both games.
He feels perhaps the Terriers were allowing Voth time to see the puck and stop it instead of screening him. "When a goalie's on his game if you let him see the puck, he'll stop it and he did both nights," Cassan states.
"Even though we were pressing hard, we still played both ends of the rink," he adds. The final results were not indicative of the Terriers effort in either game, Cassan insists.
He doesn't believe the losses will affect player performance this month.
With the final trade deadline looming, Cassan says he likes his current team. That said, like any team, he wouldn't be adverse to any possible upgrade. "Whether that materializes or not, we still have two open cards," he notes.
Asked for a preference, Cassan says he would probably opt for another experienced defenseman. The Terrier defense has played very well but has a lot of young guys playing some pretty prominent roles which is good for them. But at the same time maybe one more older experienced guy could take a little bit of pressure off of those younger players, Cassan suggests.
"I don't think people realize you need two teams to trade. Those things don't just come easily," he points out.
Whatever materializes or doesn't, Cassan claims he is still happy with the players currently on his bench.
