Ben Tkachuk leads the fly by for the Mustangs after he scored 3:55 into the second period against La Ronge on Wednesday. (Mat Barrett/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Mustangs Fall to Ice Wolves

Mustangs lose third straight for first time this season

Jan 16, 2020 | 9:19 AM

For the first time in the 2019/2020 Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) season, the Melfort Mustangs have lost three in a row.

On Wednesday, the La Ronge Ice Wolves took down the Mustangs on home ice by a score of 3-2. Mustang forward Ben Tkachuk scored in the contest and said they may have deserved better.

“I think we gave it a good effort,” he said. “I think we have to believe in ourselves a bit more. Puck didn’t go our way some of the times tonight, hit a lot of posts but I think we’ll bounce back and it’ll be fine.”

Tkachuk’s goal came in the second period, just four minutes in on a Mustang powerplay. Tian Rask slid the puck to Tkachuk who had a bit of space and put it in the top corner on Xavier Cannon who stopped 25 of 27 for La Ronge overall. Logan Holm tied the game for the Ice Wolves just over a minute later to take things into the second intermission 1-1.

Holden Knights and Jake Gudjonson scored for La Ronge in the third period to make it 3-1 with 2:30 to play. Kyle Bosch scored a shorthanded goal with just over a minute to go, to bring it back to within one, but being shorthanded for the rest of the game, the Mustangs were unable to tie it up.

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Tkachuk said defensively there were a few mistakes.

“That’ll happen every night, we got a couple of bounces that didn’t go our way,” he said “And didn’t compete enough in the [defensive] zone, but for the most part I thought we were decent.”

The Mustangs fall to 22-14-3-1 on the season, tied for fifth place at the moment, but Melfort does have games in hand on nearly every team around them in the standings. They look to get back in the win column on Friday as they open a home and home set with the Humboldt Broncos.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6