The Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation (PBCN) Selects played their last three games of the regular season, taking a victory over a close rival in the standings and keeping their first-round bye.
The Selects first hit the road to Nelson House to face the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN) Flames Feb. 27, beating the team just beneath them in the standings in a close 2-1 battle.
The Flames opened the scoring courtesy of Marcus Moody late in the second, but the Selects clawed back in the third, with Pavlo Kobikov tying the game five minutes into the final frame. With barely a minute left on the clock, the Selects kept pressing to get the lead, finally doing so when Owen Angootealuk got the puck over the line, handing PBCN a lead they would not give up.
Ethan Fechter stopped 27 shots for the Selects for the win, while NCN’s Aiden Biswanger made 36 saves on the night.
Over the weekend, the Selects headed to Norway House for a March 2 game with the North Stars. That one didn’t go PBCN’s way, with the home team snagging a 5-3 win.
The North Stars picked up the lead in the first period and never relinquished it from there, with Lucien Tait-Reaume scoring twice and both he and Jonah Ross-Bradburn getting three points. PBCN was able to cut the lead down to one at several points, with Kobe Tanuyak doing that for the Selects late in the first and Mathis Bacon-Labbe doing it again late in the third, but Norway House had their number in the end. Thomas Guimond made 41 saves for the North Stars in a winning cause, while Paxton Moore stopped 32 pucks for the Selects.
The loss won’t have any impact on the Selects’ place in the standings, with the team having clinched second place in the standings last week. The win gives PBCN 50 points on the season and the team now sports a 25-10-0-0 record, nine points behind first-place Peguis but six points ahead of NCN.
The Selects played their final home game of the season Tuesday night against the OCN Storm, picking up a 7-4 win against the OCN Storm. OCN struck first with a goal by Logan Marr, but Cranberry Portage's Harlan Jacobson, who played for the Storm last season, tied it up late in the first with a shorthanded goal and the Selects took over soon after.
Four second period goals, all by players from Nunavut, put the Selects firmly in the lead - both Angootealuk and Tanuyak scored a pair of goals to put PBCN up 5-2 going into the third. A pair of goals from OCN's Hutton Foster and from Norman Northstar Chantyn Michelle-Thompson got the Storm back into contention, but PBCN's Kobikov and Kaden Eetuk put the game out of reach late. Fechter made 42 saves for the Selects in the win, while Cranberry Portage's Logan Grenier, who started the season with the Selects, saved 23 out of 26 shots he faced in the third period for the Storm.
The team has announced their nominees for year-end player awards. The team MVP award went to Harlan Jacobson, while the PBCN player of the year went to Pelican Narrows' Embry Roberts. Roberts was also recognized as the team's fan favourite and leading scorer - Roberts had 16 goals and 50 points in 25 games for the Selects this season. Jacobson arrived to the Selects in the fall after a stint with a junior A team in Ontario and missed time due to injury, but still scored 21 goals and 46 points in 22 games.
The team’s top defenceman honour went to Israel Maktar, who earned the J’Kolby Morin Award - named after a Denare Beach hockey player and PBCN member who died in 2019, aged just 12 years old. A defensive defenceman from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Maktar still scored four goals and tallied 10 total points this season.
Flin Flon's Moore was named both the Selects’ scholastic player of the year and the club's rookie of the year. Moore played 16 games in net for PBCN, going 10-5 and finishing the year with a .911 save percentage and a 3.33 goals-against-average. He and fellow starter Fechter led the league in both save percentage and goals-against-average this season.
The players’ choice award went to Angootealuk, while Ray Pudlat Jr. earned the coaches' choice award. Angootealuk, originally from Coral Harbour, Nunavut, had 16 goals and 36 points this year - Pudlat, also from Coral Harbour, provided six goals and 11 points from the blueline.
Some members of the Selects were also named as nominees for league-wide end-of-season honours - Fechter was nominated for goalie of the year along with NCN’s Biswanger and Tucker St. John for Peguis, while Maktar joins NCN’s Chris Pynn and Peguis’ Brody McPherson as a nominee for defenceman of the year.
