The Flin Flon Bombers and Notre Dame Hounds kick off their quarter-final best-of-seven playoff series tonight in Wilcox. Dave Leaderhouse of SJHL.ca offers the following preview.
This series could be a nail-biter as there isn’t a lot separating the two combatants.
Each team won once in each other’s rink so home-ice advantage isn’t an overwhelming factor, and both teams showed they can win in overtime so that isn’t a mitigating hurdle for either squad as well.
Notre Dame, which ended the season like it started – on a lengthy winning streak – is easily the most improved club from a year ago when they narrowly got into the playoffs before upending Nipawin in four games in the wild-card round and then losing in five games to the Yorkton Terriers in the quarter-finals.
Flin Flon’s last playoff win was two years ago when they ousted the Hawks in the quarter-finals.
Since then they have dropped decisions to the Humboldt Broncos in 2013 and last spring they were on the wrong end of a prolonged wild-card match-up with Estevan.
None of that matters now, though, as this series is earmarked to be a classic. The Hounds, who opened the season with eight straight wins, captured the first meeting 4-3 in overtime on Oct. 3 in Flin Flon, but two weeks later their lightning-fast start came to an end when the Bombers won 2-1 in overtime in Wilcox.
Flin Flon then won the next meeting 4-2 on home ice on Jan. 10 and the Hounds returned the favour with a 5-4 verdict in Notre Dame on
Jan. 31.
Since that last meeting both clubs, along with Nipawin, were in a heated battle for fourth place overall and home-ice advantage in the quarter-finals with Notre Dame reeling off five straight wins to finish the season and claim the coveted spot.
In the head-to-head meetings, Andrew Cummings led the way for the Hounds with two goals and two assists while Sam Aulie had a goal and four assists and Ian Williams had four goals.
For Flin Flon, Brett Boehm paced the attack with three goals and two assists with all of his points coming in the final two meetings after he returned to the Bombers at Christmas after spending the first half of the season at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
Alex Smith with two goals and three assists, Austin Calladine and Chris Rauckman with two goals and one helper each and Dean Allison with four assists also had good offensive numbers for Flin Flon against Notre Dame.
Alexi Thibaudeau was the goaltender of record for Notre Dame in all four meetings against the Bombers while Simon Hofley appeared in all four games for the Bombers, but was relieved by Connor Slipp in the final meeting after the Hounds had jumped out to a 4-1 advantage.
Potent offence
Flin Flon, which had the most potent offence in the league scoring 207 times in 56 regular-season games, were outshot 144-137 by Notre Dame in the season series with the power-play being a non-factor for either club as the Bombers were 1/16 while the Hounds were 1/15.
Flin Flon did have the top-ranked powerplay in the regular season operating at 22 per cent while the Hounds were 10th at 15.4 per cent.
A big factor in this series will be the explosiveness of the Flin Flon offence as players like Boehm, Brett Kitt and Joel Kocur only joined the Bombers late in the season. Add them to the likes of Rauckman, Smith and Brandon Switzer and Flin Flon could be lethal.
With that said, however, the Hounds had the second-best defence allowing just 133 goals in 56 games and Thibaudeau was among the league leaders in almost every goaltending category.
This should be a true test for both clubs and with just five points separating the two clubs in the overall standings it should go right down to the wire.
The series resumes in Notre Dame tomorrow before moving north to Flin Flon for games on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Should the series go beyond the minimum, and everything points to that being the case, it will return to Notre Dame on March 20 with Game 6 to be played in Flin Flon on March 22 and Game 7 in Wilcox on March 24.
