Melfort Mustangs players line up to shake Paul Raycroft's hand for his final career SJHL game as an official, after suffering a 4-0 loss at the hands of the Humboldt Broncos (Ben Tompkins/northeastNOW)

By Ben Tompkins

Held off the scoreboard

Mustangs shutout by Broncos

Jan 14, 2024 | 3:44 PM

For the first time this season, the Melfort Mustangs were shutout by their opponent.

After taking out the Humboldt Broncos 5-2 on Friday night, the script completely flipped in Humboldt on Saturday as the Broncos pulled out a 4-0 victory.

“Our game plan coming into this game was coming out physical and heavy and weathering the storm, but we didn’t have that today,” explained Stangs’ assistant coach, Tye Scherger.

“When you come into this barn, it’s all about weathering the storm and their team is all about stretching with speed, so our F3 wasn’t good enough and we didn’t come out on top.”

Broncos’ netminder, Aidan Fischer stopped all 31 shots he faced for his second shutout of the season.

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Humboldt’s penalty kill was also exceptionally well in helping their netminder on the evening, blocking too many shots to count, as the Mustang powerplay went a combined 0 for 11 during the weekend set.

“We put up thirty-some shots, but he’s a good goalie. We got him moving side-to-side and got good quality shots, but just couldn’t find one and put it in,” Scherger added.

“We’ll get back to the drawing board and obviously look at different things and different plays, but I mean they sacrificed their body and good on them, so we’ll get back to work.”

Melfort will now hit the road five straight times after the 4-0 loss, culminating their season-long six-game road trip.

The Blue and Green will next head to Estevan on Friday for a pair of games against the Estevan Bruins.

“Day off Sunday, then Monday and Tuesday we’ll be working pretty hard, then Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be focusing on Estevan and then Friday we’ll head out,” Scherger told northeastNOW.

Both Friday’s and Saturday’s contests can be heard on CJVR.

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8