By Clark Stork

Potent power-play propels Hawks to game two victory

Apr 1, 2018 | 1:55 AM

The Nipawin Hawks flew from the nest in the opening period of game two of their Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) semi-final series and soared to a 5-3 victory and two-game lead over the Humboldt Broncos.

Brandan Arnold opened the scoring with his seventh goal of the postseason from Grant Baetsen and Jake Tremblay. Tyler Adams snapped his third of the playoffs from Brett Harasymuk and Josh McDougall making the score 2-0. Harasmyuk added his third of the postseason before the first period was out while the Hawks were short-handed.

Humboldt fought their way back in the middle period, with Jaxon Joseph, Conner Lukan, and Bryce Fiske all beating Declan Hobbs to tie the game 3-3 with just under five minutes to play. The Hawks would restore the lead before the second intermission when Logan Casavant scored his second of the playoffs at the 16:51 mark from Tremblay and Baetsen on the power-play. Baetsen rounded out the scoring with his second of the postseason from Harasymuk and McDougall late in the third period. Arnold said the team can’t complain about the results after the first two games of the series.

“We played really well. We’ve played hard,” the 20-year-old said. “The Broncos have played hard too, but at the end of the day, we’re the better team again.”

Four of the Hawks five goals were scored with the man advantage. Nipawin had six power-play opportunities overall. In Friday’s game one victory, Nipawin was 1 for 7 on the man advantage. Arnold said the club made some adjustments ahead of Saturday’s match-up.

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“Our power-play has been phenomenal all year long. Our power-play wasn’t the greatest Friday, so we went back to drawing board, touched up some things and it certainly worked out tonight,” he said.

Hobbs was forced to make 20 stops in the win. Parker Tobin allowed three goals on 11 Nipawin shots before being relieved by Jacob Wassermann. The 17-year-old Humboldt product stopped 18 of 20 shots in just over two periods of work.

The best-of-seven series now shifts to Humboldt for games three and four. Arnold said the Hawks will continue to play the same style of game away from the smaller Centennial Arena.

“We don’t think about the rink or the ice surface. We won the regular season title for a reason. If we stick to the things we do right, we will be fine,” Arnold said.

Faceoff is 7:30 p.m. on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

clark.stork@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @ClarkStork