After another regular season of consistent, and dominant play had the Yorkton Terriers atop the league standings at the Christmas Break things have started to drift for the defending Canalta Cup champs during the second last month of the 2013/14 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season.
The Terriers have won just two of their past five games, including two losses this weekend to Sherwood Division opponents that the Terriers are eclipsing in the standings by over 10 points as the team finds itself in a January slump.
Things started off well on Friday as the Terriers travelled to Flin Flon to take on the Bombers for the first time since the two teams worked on a deal that sent Flin Flon's leading scorer and 2012/13 SJHL Rookie of the Year Brett Boehm to Yorkton in a game that also marked the return of starting goalie Kale Thomson who missed the following week's road trip due to illness.
With Thomson back in the saddle between the pipes it would be Terrier vets that would steal the show in Boehm's return up north to Flin Flon as while Boehm was kept off the scoreboard, the Terriers dominated the Bombers in a 5-2 win in which they outshot their hosts 51-25.
Yorkton would start out with four unanswered goals as Tyler Giebel and Josh Ellis sandwiched two goals from Daylan Gatzke as the Terriers were able to rely on three forwards from their championship season to roar out to an insurmountable lead.
Flin Flon would score twice in the third period, but captain Devon McMullen would put it out of reach as the Terriers would easily finish a game that was never in doubt, beating up on the Bombers who have recently earned some flack for giving up on their season after trading star goalie Devin Buffalo for futures after already trading Boehm earlier in the year. Still, fire sale or no fire sale, the blowout win appeared to be a good start to the Terriers' week.
On Saturday night it would be the Terriers' turn to be on the receiving end of an early onslaught as they made the tip to "The Cage" to take on the Nipawin Hawks. The Hawks would chase Thomson out of the game early, as a goal from Kris Spriggs followed by two more unanswered goals from Tayler Balog would see Thomson's night end early with the Hawks scoring three goals on just seven shots.
With Riley Medves in between the pipes, the Hawks would still score one more goal before the end of the first period as Mitch Doell would put the game even further out of reach with the fourth goal of the period for Nipawin in a shocking opening 20 minutes where the Sherwood Division leaders looked like title contenders in a statement game from the Hawks.
The final score would be 5-0, but the game was pretty much all but over after an opening period in which the Terriers were shellshocked by Nipawin.
On Tuesday the Terriers would be offered a chance to turn things around and gain some momentum as they returned to home ice when they played hosts to the La Ronge Ice Wolves who came into the weekday meeting having just won two of their last ten games to sit in fourth place in the Sherwood Division.
Things would start off on the right foot for the Terriers as a goaltender interference penalty commited by the Ice Wolves Wilson Dumais set up an early Kailum Gervais powerplay goal in the first minute of action. Brett Boehm and Tyler Giebel would both score within the game's first ten minutes as the Terriers looked as if they would take their frustrations from their blowout loss in Nipawin with a lopsided win of their own at home with three unanswered goals in the first ten minutes of play.
La Ronge would get back within two goals before the first intermission as Tyson Valette would erase one goal of the Terriers cushion before the break.
A scoreless second period would set the stage for a wild Ice Wolves third period comeback that will surely have coach Trent Cassan fuming as the Terriers would head into the final period up two goals only to see that lead vanish in under three minutes to start the third period.
Daulton Siwak would score on the powerplay eighteen seconds into the third period before Sebastian Beauregard levelled the game and Jared Iron pushed it to 4-3 less than two minutes later as the momentum completely turned into hands of the northern visitors in a flash.
The Ice Wolves were not done there as Rhett Kehoe grabbed the insurance for La Ronge on an assist from Sebastian Beauregard to give the visitors five unanswered goals after starter Dusan Sydora was pulled for Tyler Fuhr.
Yorkton would answer back on the powerplay as Tyler Giebel would put the game back to within one goal for the Terriers on the powerplay with his ninth goal of the season and his second of the game, but it was too late as the Ice Wolves stole a win at the FAA after being outshot 44-28 and going down 3-0 in the game's opening ten minutes.
Luckily for the Terriers, they were helped out by a two game losing streak from the Melville Millionaires which spared them from falling out of the Viterra Division title race as the two teams look to win the first ever Viterra Division title under the SJHL's new three division format.
The losses from Melville keep the Terriers just four points back from the Mils in the standings with a game at hand as Melville is on 58 points through 42 games while the Terriers are at 54 points through 41 games in a thrilling division race.
Current division leaders through January 23 are Melville (58 points), Kindersley (58 points), and Nipawin (42 points). All three division leaders are holding four point leads.
A tough weekend of games lies ahead as the Terriers will visit Humboldt, who are also looking to shake off a slump that has them third in the Kramer Division before hosting the Kramer leading Kindersley Klippers on Saturday. Following those two games will be another home date against the Flin Flon Bombers on Tuesday, if Yorkton wants to get back into the division lead now is as good of a time as any to turn around a slump into a nice winning streak.
