The Nipawin Hawks seek their second win of the SJHL season at home to La Ronge Tuesday. (Clark Stork/northeastNOW Staff)

By Clark Stork

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Hawks host La Ronge in Tuesday SJHL action

Oct 8, 2024 | 1:00 PM

For the second time already this Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) season the Nipawin Hawks will host the La Ronge Ice Wolves.

In the home opener on Sept. 21 the Ice Wolves downed the Hawks 3-2. Since then Nipawin has a win and four more losses, the club’s record is 1-6 on the year following a southern Saskatchewan road trip that included three games where Nipawin did collect their first win on Friday in Estevan. Head Coach and General Manager Tad Kozun said the staff learned a lot about the group following the three games where the Hawks were outscored 15 to 7.

“We are obviously excited about getting back on home ice,” he said after the team’s gameday skate. “The nice part about going down south is we learned a lot about our team and things we need to work on and how we power through things. We got a good skate in on Monday and we’re looking forward to hitting the ice at home.”

Featuring the youngest roster in the SJHL and just one 20-year-old and just six returnees the start of the season has been a challenge for Kozun and new Assistant Coach Derek Hutton, but Kozun feels the early season trip was beneficial for everyone’s development this season.

“Some guys went out and had really good games, and they have proven themselves to be in our lineup now and moving guys around we found some different chemistry which is nice,” he said.

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A significant factor in the Hawks’ results so far this season has been the play of the powerplay and killing penalties. Nipawin had the third ranked penalty killing team a year ago just behind finalists Melfort and Flin Flon at nearly 90 per cent killing efficiency. This season through seven games the Hawks are killing 75 per cent of the penalties they take which is 10^th in the league, the team’s powerplay efficiency is just under 14 per cent, that is eighth in the SJHL. The powerplay did score three goals on the southern trip but work still needs to be done if the team wants to change their fortunes.

“Our powerplay scored a few goals which is huge,” Kozun added. “We talk about special teams a lot here lately and realistically our powerplay helped us get to overtime against Estevan and put us back in the game against Weyburn as well. We’re looking to build off that tonight.”

Faceoff is set for 7 p.m. at the Centennial Arena. The Hawks and Ice Wolves will meet eight times this season.