By Aaron Schulze

On the ice

Hawks create distance in standings, beat Hounds 3-2

Feb 4, 2019 | 2:40 PM

The Nipawin Hawks home game against the Notre Dame Hounds on Saturday, Feb. 2 wasn’t the most emotional victory, but it was a crucial win in the final quarter of the regular season.

It was a more crucial win after the first 11 minutes where the Hawks found themselves trailing 2-0, after the Hounds’ Hardy Wagner struck first 29 seconds in and Jarrett Penner finished off a Marshall Wilton pass nearly 10 minutes later.

Doug Johnson, Hawks head coach, said his team was sloppy defensively in those opening minutes and wasn’t happy about it. However, the belief on the bench was still there early on.

“You always have faith in your guys,” Johnson told northeastNOW. “If you don’t have faith in your guys you shouldn’t be a coach. I think guys were just pissed off at themselves, and it showed because we started working harder.”

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The hard work Johnson mentioned led to two goals later in the first period. Josh Lester scored his third goal of the season with a little over four minutes to go, before Carson Erhardt scored on a wraparound with the Hounds goalie out of his net 31 second later.

No more goals would be shared until the final seconds. Hawks forward Colton Nikiforuk got the puck on net late and Christian Bosa took a swipe at it before the puck popped out of the goalie’s glove and slowly made its way into the net.

Hawks goaltender Patrick Pugliese faced some snow during one of his 24 saves.

With 13 seconds left in the game, Bosa was credited with the game-winning 3-2 goal, although he told Nikiforuk to go at the front of the goal celebration line.

“He threw it at the net. I kind of swatted but I’m not 100 per cent sure if I hit it,” Bosa said. “I kind of blacked out there. I told him to go up front because I’m pretty sure he got it, but I guess we’ll see in video.”

Hawks forward Colton Nikiforuk (centre) was encouraged by teammate Christian Bosa (behind) to be at the front of the line during his goal celebration.

Johnson called Saturday one of Bosa’s better games in a long time.

“He’s coming back from back-to-back leg injuries, so it’s taken a while,” Johnson said. “I just thought he moved his feet, did all the little things, got pucks deep, made a few nice plays that created odd man rushes for us. If he keeps playing like that and we’re going to be very happy.”

The win not only puts the Hawks with a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) best 69 points in 48 games (33-12-1-2), but the opportunity to control their own destiny.

Exiting the weekend, the Hawks can clinch the Sherwood Division with a 7-2-1 record in their final 10 games, and clinch home ice advantage throughout the SJHL playoffs with nine wins in that same stretch.

Bosa, an alternate captain this season, is one of the returning Hawks from last year’s squad who won the Canalta Cup as SJHL champions. He has one piece of advice to the new Hawks going into the last 10 games of the season.

Win all the games.

“We’ve got to win every game because playoffs is a whole different season, different beast,” he said. “We’ve just got to be prepared. Every game is going to be a battle from here on out. If we win all our games, we’re pretty much set and we’ll get a good seed in the playoffs.”

The Hawks will try to win the first of their final 10 games on Tuesday, Feb. 5 when they travel up to La Ronge for a game with the Ice Wolves.

aaron.schulz@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow