(Photo courtesy/Broad Leaf Media, Facebook)

By Ben Tompkins

Weekend home and home

Mustangs host Ice Wolves for first time this season

Dec 6, 2024 | 4:07 PM

The Melfort Mustangs will welcome their division rivals, the La Ronge Ice Wolves, to the Northern Lights Palace on Friday.

Tonight’s contest will be the third meeting of the season between the two clubs, the first of which to be played in Melfort.

“When you’re playing them on a normal size rink it makes it a lot easier, time and space wise for sure. I think it’s to our benefit in our rank also, it’s a hard rank to play in for opposing teams, and we just know how to play in our rink and get lots of shots and just buzz and be fast out there,” said Mustangs’ defenceman Nic Andrusiak.

“We’re just gonna play our game and hopefully come out with the win, we’ve been buying into our D zone lots, and it’s been helping us lately. All four of our lines have been buzzing, getting points and scoring goals up and down the lineup recently, so that helps too.”

The Mustangs enter Friday night’s game a perfect 2 and 0 against the Ice Wolves this season, both of which were just one-goal contests.

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Melfort, however, has played less close games recently, coming in on an eight-game win streak and outscoring their opponents 13-2 in their last two.

“I think everyone is just buying in right now, early on in the season, we were just kind of getting the hang of things and learning, and I think now everyone’s kind of dialled in. Our systems are pretty down pat, we’re just going with the flow, and it’s working. Blevs knows how to win, so we just keep doing what he’s telling us,” Andrusiak added.

“I think we have just played heavy against them, and they’re obviously a heavy team with Killer as their coach. We’ve won some tight battles and not all of the goals that we get against them are nice goals, we get some greasy ones too, so I think just digging in and getting greasy in front of the net has helped for sure.”

Puck drop at the Palace is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., as Andrusiak’s teammate Reilley Kotai will suit up for his 100th career Junior A game.

Kotai enters the milestone night as one of, if not the hottest player in the SJHL, having put up nine points in the Blue and Green’s previous two contests.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

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