Hawks drop game 2, series tied going to Yorkton

In response, the Hawks opened the second period with three goals in under five minutes: an Austen Flaman tap in, a Michael Makarenko wrist shot top shelf, and a Jordan Simoneau rebound.

The Terriers took their timeout to settle things down, while Hawks’ head coach Doug Johnson took the time to enforce his message.

“We have to buckle down defensively,” Johnson told northeastNOW. “We’re still giving them way too much offence and it showed because they scored two goals in the last 15 minutes of that period. We just kept giving up offence on undisciplined plays and those are things that can’t occur against a team with as much offence as Yorkton.”

Keenleyside completed his hat trick before the second period expired. A shot up the middle post and in and a goal off the rush on the right side made it a 3-3 game going into the third.

The Terriers kept momentum to open the third. Mason Mullaney was left alone in front and shot the puck over Hobbs, and the Hawks trailed 4-3.

Hawks captain Gage Misskey was challenged by Terriers’ rookie Aiden Bulych into a fight moments later. It was the second fight of the game after the Hawks’ 16-year-old rookie Jaxsen Wiebe scrapped with Kishaun Gervais in the first period.

Johnson said he wasn’t surprised to see two fights in a game.

“It’s playoff hockey and emotions are high,” he said. “I’m disappointed more because those are trade-offs we don’t want to make. We trade off a first-line winger for a fourth-line winger, that’s a bad trade-off, then our captain for a 17-year-old.

“We need to manage the emotions a little better, suck it up, and show a little more ‘we’ instead of ‘me.’”

Bulych received an instigator penalty, which put the Hawks on a power play, although they couldn’t capitalize, as moments later Mullaney scored again on a nearly identical play as his first goal to put the Terriers up 5-3.

The Hawks pushed for the next 11 minutes for two goals and they did get one with Jake Tremblay crashing the net, but the deficit was too large to overcome, and the series is tied 1-1 going to Yorkton.

“We showed that we can take it to them when we work,” Johnson said. “But where was that for the first 55 minutes of the game? We just didn’t really show up, focus, and work like we could the first 50 minutes. You look at the positives, but then you’re pissed off a little bit because of the outcome.”

Two games are in the books in this series between the SJHL’s highest- scoring offence in Yorkton and the lowest goals against in Nipawin.

With a two-game sample size to help make adjustments throughout the rest of the best-of-seven series, Johnson has noticed some trends that need to be worked on going forward.

“We’re not great defensively,” he said. “We can score goals but we’ve got to tighten up. Our defensive structure and back end, they’ve been our bread and butter – our backbone all year long, along with our goaltending. I’m very happy with how Dec played, he was hung out to dry a lot.

“Offensively, we score four goals we win 90 per cent of the time, but unfortunately we had some guys who weren’t committed to defence. They outworked us and that doesn’t happen to our team very often, and when it does outcomes like this occur.”

The Hawks will travel to Yorkton for games three and four on Tuesday, March 19 and Wednesday, March 20. They’ll return home at Centennial Arena for game five Friday, March 22.

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow

by Aaron Schulze

Hawks drop game 2, series tied going to Yorkton

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