Mike Reagan’s theory about starting a playoff series on the road is about to be put to the test.
His Flin Flon Bombers take on the Weyburn Red Wings in what promises to be a hard-fought quarterfinal series beginning next Friday, March 18 at Crescent Point Place.
“I think where you get the real [home-ice] advantage is later on in a series, like Game 7,” says Reagan, Flin Flon’s head coach and general manager. “I also don’t mind starting [a series] on the road. I’ve always been a fan of that because they say that you’re not in trouble until you lose a game at home, and I think that if you can go on the road and get one out of the two [first games], you’ve stolen home-ice advantage.”
The Bombers drew the Red Wings as quarterfinal opponents after losing their final game of the regular season, a 4-3 home loss to Nipawin, on Tuesday. That gave Flin Flon a sixth-place league finish and a date with third-place Weyburn.
In the Red Wings, the Bombers face the SJHL’s stingiest team and its best goaltender in towering Jack Burgart. Weyburn is not a prolific offensive club, however, ranking eighth in goals for the regular season.
The Bombers are no slouch when it comes to keeping pucks out of the net. They had the fourth-best goals-against record as starter Zac Robidoux and back-up Brenden Newton each put up some of the best GAAs and save-percentages in the league.
Offensively, Flin Flon had the fourth-best output in the league, with nearly half of its goals coming off the sticks of linemates Brandon Switzer, Joel Kocur and Alex Smith.
Smith, who led Flin Flon in scoring with 84 points (32G, 52A) and has been named SJHL Player of the Year, says he and his teammates are optimistic going into the postseason.
“We’ve been the best team in the league since Dec. 1 and we’re a confident group,” he says. “We know we can beat any team in this league. You have to beat the best to win a championship, so starting with Weyburn is a good challenge and I think we’re looking forward to it.”
Weyburn had Flin Flon’s number this season, going 5-0 in a series of one- and two-goal games, including one that went to a shootout. The Bombers were outscored 16-9 in the season series.
Reagan isn’t deterred by such stats.
“Out of the five games we’ve played them in this year, I honestly feel like we deserved to win three of them,” he says. “Sometimes you just don’t get the puck luck and that sort of thing, but we’ve played them well and at the end of the day we know that we’re going to be right there.
“They’ve got a great goaltender and they’ve got a gritty hockey team, but we believe that we’re very capable of beating them.”
Bolstering Flin Flon’s chances is the fact that the team is expected to be 100 per cent healthy for Game 1.
“We’ve got a couple of guys that are banged up right now, but they should be 100 per cent by the 18th,” Reagan says, attaching no names to those particular players.
If there is apprehension on the part of the Bombers, it’s over the abundance of travel the series will entail, particularly if it goes past four or five games as expected.
Weyburn is 800 km and more than eight hours of driving away. Of all the teams in the SJHL, only Estevan is further from
Flin Flon.
“We’re confident playing against anybody,” Reagan says. “It’s just the travel from the past two years. The experience of travelling that much takes a toll on you, and that’s my biggest concern.”
Given all the hours on the highway ahead, Reagan lobbied for two nights off between games whenever the series shifts communities. The league obliged.
Bomber fans may be worried less about travel and more about what some view as inconsistency. That sentiment was perhaps exemplified by a quartet of February games that saw Flin Flon shut out Notre Dame and La Ronge before dropping two games to the league-leading Battlefords by a combined score of 14-3.
Reagan doesn’t share such concerns, pointing out the Bombers have lost no more than two games in a row since October while amassing seven- and eight-game winning streaks. There were also four- and three-game win streaks.
Which isn’t to deny the capacity for improvement. Reagan says his team still needs to show more discipline at key times in the game.
“I think throughout the year, at times we’ve been very disciplined and then there’s been times when we’ve been very undisciplined,” he says.
Hopes are high for the Bombers this postseason, especially given that the franchise a) has openly identified a championship as its goal and b) the number of key players who age out of the SJHL this season.
Flin Flon had similarly lofty ambitions last year only to see their season end in a heartbreaking Game 7 overtime defeat at the hands of Notre Dame.
But overall, Reagan believes this year’s club is an improvement over last year’s.
“I think we had higher-end players [last year], but this year’s team plays more like a team,” he says. “I think the guys have accepted roles on the team.”
The quarterfinal series will see games 1 and 2 go in Weyburn on March 18 and 19, and games 3 and 4 in Flin Flon on March 22 and 23. If necessary, games 5, 6 and 7 will go March 26 in Weyburn, March 28 in Flin Flon and March 30 in Weyburn.
SJHL Playoff Picture
Wild-card series*
La Ronge (7) vs Yorkton (10)
Kindersley (8) vs Notre Dame (9)
Quarterfinals**
Battlefords (1) vs second-best wild-card winner
Melfort (2) vs best wild-card winner
Weyburn (3) vs Flin Flon (6)
Nipawin (4) vs Estevan (5)
* Series scheduled to begin yesterday, Thursday
** Begins next week, after wild-card series
