After killing a two-man advantage in overtime the Power Dodge Estevan Bruins seemed to have all the momentum in the world.
But a pass back to a defenceman at the blueline when the Bruins had their own power play led to a breakaway from the Nipawin Hawks’ Kenzie Arnold, who tucked the puck in behind Bob Didur to give the Hawks the 4-3 lead and the win in Game 3 of the Canalta Cup final at Affinity Place.
“Those sorts of things happen in the game of hockey,” said Bruins head coach and general manager Chris Lewgood of the slip that led to the winning goal. “It’s terrible timing but there’s not much you can do about that one. It’s a lot of plays that led up to that that cost us. We’ve got to eliminate mistakes that we can control and (if) we do that, we win the game handily. I think we were the better team (Tuesday night) except for those mistakes and those mistakes made the Hawks the better team.”
An Affinity Place Bruins’ record 2,662 fans cheered loudly in the stands throughout the extra frame as the game went back and forth.
Now the Bruins have to re-find that energy again if they want to tie the series Wednesday night back at home.
“Obviously it’s a tough one to lose but our fans are going to be back tomorrow,” said Bruins captain Jake Fletcher, who had two assists in the game. “We had bad turnovers that led to those goals and just a few breakdowns. We know if we play our game mistake-free, we can take these guys.”
The Bruins scored the first goal of the game early in the second period when Hayden Guilderson tallied all alone in front of Nipawin goaltender Declan Hobbs. Either his second or third shot in close was enough. But the Hawks scored with just over 20 seconds on the clock on a goal from Brandon Arnold.
The Bruins came out flying in the third and scored goals from Zach Goberis and Guilderson.
“We just got down to Bruin hockey,” said Fletcher. “We left all the refs and extra stuff behind and just focused on the game and tried to use our speed on their defence.”
But the Hawks came back once again with a pair of goals from Logan Casavant in the second half of the third period, scoring the last one on a power play with 3.9 seconds in the game and the goaltender pulled.
Didur stopped 39 of 43 Hawks shots in the loss.
This one might be tough to put behind them but the teams are right back at it Wednesday night.
“We’ve just got to refocus, get some rest and come with the same mindset we had today but just eliminate some of those errors,” said Lewgood.
