(Photo courtesy/Broad Leaf Media, Facebook)

By Ben Tompkins

Carried Over Success

Mustangs seem destined for another top-four run in 2024

Dec 21, 2023 | 10:29 AM

The Melfort Mustangs are coming off a top-four finish in the 2022/23 season, and now more than halfway through their 2023/24 campaign, it seems as though they’re destined for at least that amount of success again if not more.

As the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) has now reached its Christmas break, the Mustangs are near the top of the standings.

“As a group, we got quite a bit mentally tougher as the year has gone on, and we’re dealing with adversity much better than we were at the start of the year. I’ve also seen improvement in our team play, so when you see those two things develop and improve at the rate that they are, that’s pretty exciting going into the second half,” explained head coach and general manager, Trevor Blevins.

“You sit back and look at it, you gotta be pretty satisfied, we dropped a few games here and there but for the most part, our guys just showed up every night. We’ve also done a great job being short in the lineup, especially through December, to be able to get things done here and position us where we are.”

Currently, Melfort sits tied for second in the league standings with the Battlefords North Stars with 47 points.

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The Stangs, however, have played the most games out of any team so far, accumulating a 22-9-3 record, in 34 games played.

The busy schedule is likely one of the reasons why the club has dealt with so many injuries so far, however, according to Blevins, that has only provided a great opportunity for the rest of the group.

“A lot of the players got up in the lineup and really took advantage of the being up there, so we saw improvement from our older players and our 05 group. The experience and situations they got to play in are going to be beneficial for us, especially if we run into injuries again or down the stretch into playoffs where you need a full bench every night,” he told northeastNOW.

“We just want to have the mentality of continuing to improve every day, you can’t achieve perfection, but you should be able to get close to it and we want to get there. I feel that the way we’ve been playing as a team has been excellent and we want that to carry into the stretch after Christmas.”

Overall, the Blue and Green had a fantastic start and end to their 2023 portion of the season, posting a pristine 14-0-1 mark.

While the other stretch of the year wasn’t exactly great, the team had a ton of one-goal losses and made some necessary moves to get better, which is something that will likely continue if they want to compete with the best in the league and Canada (Flin Flon Bombers).

“You always want to look at the measuring stick, which is Flin Flon, and you have to look at what kind of group can beat them. I’m very confident in our group, we’ve made some moves to get a little bit stronger and tougher on defence, and we’ve definitely adjusted our forwards too. We can play a skill and high-compete level game, and you need a balance in order to be successful in playoffs,” Blevins added.

“We’re gonna have to play a high energy, high compete kind of style because that’s what it’s gonna take to win a league championship. It really doesn’t matter what year you’re in, you need those attributes, you need your team to be consistent and buying into playing the right way, and right now we have that and we want to make sure that continues.”

The Herd will return in 2024 when they head to La Ronge to face the Ice Wolves (an organization they’re currently 3-0 against) on Friday, Jan. 5.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8