Nipawin celebrates Carter Anderson's team leading 23rd goal in a 5-2 Hawks win over Kindersley Friday in SJHL action. (Clark Stork/northeastNOW Staff)

By Clark Stork

Finishing strong

Hawks fly over Kindersley with dominating third period

Mar 1, 2025 | 10:24 AM

The Nipawin Hawks have saved their best hockey for last, in both the season and the third periods.

After scoring five goals in the third period twice in recent games, the Hawks scored four in the final frame Friday en route to a 5-2 win over Kindersley as Nipawin avoided a season sweep by the Klippers.

The Hawks are relishing the spoiler role and have won six of their last eight games despite being eliminated from the postseason race earlier in February. Kindersley was looking to add to their cushion over La Ronge for the final playoff spot, but the Hawks kept the Klippers just two points ahead of the Ice Wolves.

Kindersley took a 1-0 lead in Nipawin, however Carter Anderson scored his team-leading 23rd goal of the year, tying the score 1-1 prior to the second concluding.

In the third period, Finley Radloff scored twice. The Hawks hometown captain has seven goals in his last five games, he has 18 now this year. Ashton Tait scored his 10th goal, the 18-year-old Prince Albert, Sask. product had three goals in two games this week, and Konnor Watson added his ninth in the win.

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Radloff said the team is starting to lay the groundwork for next year.

“Yeah, it’s really fun what we are doing right now, if we can keep this rolling it can translate into next year and we’re going to have a really good year next season,” the 19-year-old said after the game.

Nipawin earned their 15^th victory on Friday, the team admitted to a rebuild this year and started poorly winning just seven games before the Christmas break. The club went almost six weeks without a win prior to catching fire in February including Radloff who scored five times last weekend in the Hawks sweep of their southern road trip, the first for the organization since 2017. He said the season has been a rollercoaster, but he’s back on track with four games left.

“There’s definitely been some ups and downs, but I think I am finding my way right now and I am finding my way,” he added.

Nipawin has the remainder of the weekend off and will travel to Melville on Tuesday trying to avoid a season sweep by the Millionaires, who are the SJHL’s hottest team right now, currently on an 11-game winning streak going into Saturday’s game against Humboldt. Radloff said snapping a stretch like that would be big for the team.

“It’s always nice to get a road win, especially in Melville,” he said. “If we can break their winning streak like we have done with other teams like Flin Flon I think it would be huge for the boys,” he concluded.

Face off on Tuesday is at 7 p.m., and the game will be on 750 Beach Radio.

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clark.stork@pattisonmedia.com