Centennial Cup tale of the tape: Looking at the Dauphin Kings, Flin Flon's next opponent

The Bombers play their last Centennial Cup preliminary round game Tuesday afternoon - and it's an all Manitoba showdown.

Flin Flon will play their only back-to-back of the round against the MJHL champion Dauphin Kings.

Before the tournament, the Kings beat both rivals Swan Valley and Waywayseecappo in their league playoffs before facing a tough test in the Steinbach Pistons, who took the Kings to seven games. A late third period goal by Dauphin’s Brayden Dube got the Kings to a league title and to the big dance.

No other team in the tournament relies more on their defence for points than the Kings, who had both Colby Jaquet and Parker Malchuk finish the regular season and playoffs with impressive numbers. Kaden Bryant, a former Manitoba U18 AAA star, put up 75 points and added 17 more in the playoffs, while goalie Carson Cherepak was a brick wall when the team needed him to be in playoff crunch time.

So far in the tournament, the Kings have shown well, going undefeated so far through two games - one against Ottawa, where Dauphin won 2-1, and another against Summerside, where the Kings laid a 7-1 whoopin' on the Western Capitals. Bryant had four points in the win, while both Malchuk and Nakodan Greyeyes had three points each.

Cherepak has been one of the tournament's best goalies so far, making 65 saves on 67 shots so far through Dauphin's first two games.

No Kings players have NCAA Division I commitments for next season - just two team members, Malchuk and Aidan Brook, have played major junior hockey.

The battle of Manitoba will have major implications for the Bombers. If Flin Flon wins, they will clinch a spot in the tournament's playoff round, guaranteed to finish at least third. In fact, the Bombers can even finish first in their division if they win against the Kings, if last-place Soo upsets Dauphin in their final game and if Ottawa defeats Summerside.

By contrast, a Bomber loss to the Kings takes the team's fate completely out of their own hands. Flin Flon's hopes of advancing would then rest on the Summerside/Ottawa matchup Wednesday afternoon - a Summerside win would move the Bombers along as the third seed, while Ottawa would leapfrog both the Bombers and Capitals with a win, pushing the Bombers into fourth and out of the playoff round.

It is the first time the two teams have faced off in non-exhibition play since 1993, when both teams faced off in the Anavet Cup following the Bombers' last league title. In a six-game slobberknocker of a series that ended with the longest game in the Bombers' nearly century-long history, Flin Flon's Travis Cheyne sent the Bombers to their first national junior A tournament with a quadruple-overtime game-winner. Cheyne's goal clinched both the series and a 5-4 win for the maroon and white.