The Flin Flon Bombers and their fans will breathe a little easier over the Christmas break after the team snapped a six-game losing streak on the road last week.
After dropping the first two games of the trip each by a single goal, Flin Flon rolled into the Battlefords on Friday night. By the end of weekend play they had outscored the North Stars 8-3 over their final two games of 2014.
“I thought we played well the entire road trip,” said head coach Mike Reagan. “The first two games we got beat by goaltenders. That’s kind of been the story this month. I don’t think we’ve been playing bad hockey. For a team that scores a lot of goals, we had kind of hit a dry patch.”
Despite their losses Tuesday in La Ronge and Wednesday in Humboldt, the Bombers outshot their opponents in both games.
On Friday, Adam Beukeboom stopped 23 shots to earn his third shutout since joining the team.
Tyson Empey opened the scoring at the six-minute mark of the first period, and Danys Chartrand and Alex Smith added some insurance in the second period.
Final shots on net were 29-23 Flin Flon.
The Bombers scored one power-play goal on three chances, while the North Stars failed to take advantage of their four tries with the extra attacker.
Saturday saw the Bombers score five goals in a span of 6:03 during the second period to take a 5-0 lead after 40 minutes of play.
Dean Allison was the first to score at 56 seconds into the second period. Empey was next at 3:50, followed by Smith at 5:22. Kristian St. Onge made it 4-0 at 6:09 and Austin Evans capped a three-point night with a goal at 6:59.
“It was fun on the bench,” said Reagan. “You could see the guys smiling again and the confidence was real high. We scored some beautiful goals. In those six minutes, we probably could have scored three more goals.”
All five goals came at even strength; the Bombers were held scoreless on their four power play chances.
The North Stars did all of their scoring in the third period, notching three goals, but the hole was too deep to climb out of. The Stars finished with one power play goal on eight turns with the man advantage.
The Bombers outshot the Stars 33-28, and Adam Beukeboom picked up his second consecutive win between the pipes.
Despite a rough start to the month, Reagan says there was never a time he sensed any panic in the dressing room.
“We’ve outshot every one of our opponents except for Melfort,” he said, looking back over the month. “Out of eight games this month you’re talking about 24 periods of hockey, and I bet we played 18 really good periods. We just found ways to lose hockey games.”
Reagan says the turning point was the day off on Thursday last week.
“We had a meeting and the guys really talked about their roles on the team,” he said. “We went into Battleford with a real positive attitude. We switched some things up on the forecheck that we thought would create more turnovers and scoring opportunities. We got some timely goals and some big timely saves as well. Getting a 3-0 victory the first night was crucial.”
The win allowed everyone, Reagan included, to breathe a big sigh of relief.
Prior to the final game before the break, the team met again. “You know both teams are thinking about the Christmas break,” said Reagan. “The team that comes mentally prepared is going to win the hockey game. Confidence is such a big thing in hockey -- in anything. You could see that on the bench.”
January is a busy month for the Bombers with 12 games on the schedule, six at home and six on the road.
The Bombers will kick things off with a four-game home stand, starting on January 4 against the Humboldt Broncos.
