The Power Dodge Estevan Bruins played the lowly, last place Yorkton Terriers and the highly skilled Battlefords North Stars, the team that knocked the Bruins out in the playoffs last year, in a pair of home games last week and ended up with a win and a shootout loss.
Those who weren’t there will never guess against whom the win and loss was against. The Bruins won 3-2 over the Battlefords and lost 5-4 in a shootout to the Terriers at Affinity Place.
The game against the North Stars was the kind of playoff intensity that these two teams have been known for over recent years.
“Every time we faceoff against that team it’s a different type of atmosphere,” said Hayden Guilderson, whose tying goal on the power play in the third period helped cue a comeback for the Bruins. “It’s comparable to the games we had against them last year in the playoffs. Every little mistake in that game can end up in the back of your net. You’ve got to capitalize on everything and I’m happy we had a pretty good game tonight.”
The game had a pair of fights that seemed to help emphasize the fact that these two teams don’t like each other – neither of the combatants for the Bruins were a member of the team in last year’s playoff series. Towards the latter half of the second period, Bruins forward Matthew Chekay’s hit on Stars player Matthias Urbanski was deemed excessive by the Stars players and Owen Lamb stepped up and tossed the mitts with Chekay. That fight, and the one where Bruins blueliner Austin King-Cunningham chucked the dukes with Battlefords’ Blake Fennig, seemed to raise the intensity level of the Bruins to a healthy level.
“They came out in that second period and that Urbanski kid came out flying, and he hit Eddy (Mark Edmands),” said Guilderson. “We didn’t take a liking to that and I said to Cheks before he went out there ‘Just have a good shift here.’ I know when our guys are running around, laying the body and making clean hits, it fires everybody up on the bench. It brings up the energy and emotion on our team.”
“We’re two physical teams,” said Bruins captain Jake Fletcher. “So when we go at each other, sometimes tempers boil over and (Saturday) it was two great fights by guys stepping up when they needed to. They gave us tons of energy. They both won their fights, I thought, and really set us on the right track.”
The game was 2-2 in the third with the teams hesitant to trade chances. Fletcher came into the Stars’ zone on the right side and rifled a wrist shot over the shoulder of Battlefords goaltender Taryn Kotchorik for the 3-2 lead, and what would end up being the winning goal.
“I’ve done it a few times before and I’ve been working on it a bit after practice,” said Fletcher. “Coming back and being down by one going into the third, all the better. We knew we’d played 40 good minutes. We just had a couple of breakdowns and they put it in the net.”
The game started with the Bruins’ fourth line getting the goal, as Jerzy Martin potted his second of the season from TJ Irey and Chekay.
Bruins assistant coach Aren Miller also thought the game had a high level of intensity and had good depth at forward, a good game from the blueline and a very good game from goaltender Matt Lukacs.
“It was a total team effort from our 12 forwards, six D and our goaltender (Saturday night),” he said. “We’ve talked about the little details and cleaning things up and (Saturday) was the night it kind of all came together. The boys deserved all the credit. They put in a lot of hard work there.”
Lukacs stopped 21 of 23 shots in the game.
Wednesday, Kaelan Holt and Guilderson scored a pair of goals each against the Terriers. Holt was the only Bruin to score in the shootout, as Jarid Morhart and Matthew Jones each scored for Yorkton.
The Bruins have a pair of games against the Terriers this weekend, with Friday’s battle at Affinity Place and Saturday at Ochapowace. One of those games will likely feature new goaltender Bo Didur, acquired at the Dec. 1 roster deadline from the BCHL’s Salmon Arm Silverbacks.
“It’s kind of a tough situation with Bo,” said Miller. “He hadn’t practiced and got brand new gear and you’re not going to throw him in against the best team in the league. I think it’s good for him to get here, get a couple of practices in and get to know the guys… and watch a couple of games, and then this week he’s going to get four practices and then he’ll get one of the two games next week if not both, we’ll see how it goes.”
