A pair of hard fought road games resulted in two points for the Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers, as the 鈥楢A鈥� dogs skated to a scoreless draw with the Notre Dame Argos Saturday night before storming back from down four Sunday afternoon to tie the Weyburn Lightstream Wings 5-5.
The two points gives Yorkton an overall record of 9-12-9, good enough for 27 points and seventh in the very tight SSMHL Midget 鈥楢A鈥� division.
The Notre Dame Bantam Hounds (23-2-1) continue to lead the league with 47 points, 11 more than second place Estevan (15-7-6, 36 pts) and 14 points ahead of both the Notre Dame Hounds (14-6-5) and Regina Rangers (15-9-3), who share third and fourth with 33 points.
The Notre Dame Argos (14-10-1) sit in fifth with 29 points, one ahead of Weyburn (10-10-8, 28 pts).
The Terriers (9-12-9) sit in seventh with 27, one up on eighth place Melville (11-12-4, 26 pts), two ahead of the ninth place Prairie Storm (11-11-3, 25 pts) and three up on both the Regina Capitals (10-12-4) and Regina Vics (10-14-4), who share 10th and 11th respectively with 24 points.
Moose Jaw (10-14-3) holds down 12th spot but is only three points out of a playoff spot with 23 points while Swift Current (8-16-2) and Lumsden/Bethune (0-25-1) are a little further back with 18 and one point respectively.
Scoreless Saturday
Offence was hard to come by on Saturday, as the Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers and Notre Dame Argos combined for 53 shots and zero goals over the entire 60-minute hockey game.
Both goalies 鈥� Yorkton鈥檚 Dakota Berezowski and Notre Dame鈥檚 Ashton Abel 鈥� were perfect on the night with Berezowski stopping all 27 shots he faced while Abel did the same, turning aside 26 Yorkton chances as both goalies registered the shutout. 鈥淲e had the chances but we just couldn鈥檛 bury them,鈥� said Kinsmen Terrier head coach Grant Ottenbreit following the game. 鈥淲e had a breakaway that could have ended the game, we had a goalpost near the end and an open net that we missed on at the end, but that鈥檚 hockey sometimes.鈥�
The Kinsmen Terrier head coach added that when you don鈥檛 score a goal in Notre Dame, the chances of coming away with a point are very slim. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really a tough place to play,鈥� offered Ottenbreit. 鈥淵ou want to win every game but coming into this big rink, kids get lost out there.
鈥淔or us it鈥檚 a challenge to keep an eye on five white jerseys sometimes, but I thought we did very well. We did a good job and probably out-chanced and out-shot them. We didn鈥檛 get the win, but we鈥檒l take the one point and get out of here and be happy with that.鈥�
Comeback Sunday
A nearly perfect power play and a never-say-die attitude allowed the Kinsmen Terriers to claw back from down 4-0 early in Sunday鈥檚 game against Weyburn to pick up their second tie of the weekend and ninth of the season.
Trey Stocker, Rhett Nikolejsin, Todd Johnson and Brayden Barsness gave Weyburn a 4-0 lead after 20 minutes and chased Kinsmen Terrier starting goaltender Carter Park from the cage in favour of Saturday鈥檚 hero Dakota Berezowski; and that鈥檚 where the turning of momentum started, as Berezowski acted as a calming influence on Yorkton for the remainder of the period and into the second, where Yorkton would tally three times, all on the power play.
First Brayden Miller got Yorkton on the board just 1:43 into the middle frame. Michael Coleridge made it 4-2 with an unassisted power play goal less than two minutes later before Barsness鈥� second goal of the game restored the three goal Weyburn lead, this time at 5-2 with 8:25 left in the second period.
It seemed as if the game would remain 5-2 heading into the final period, but with seconds ticking off the clock the Kinsmen Terriers got their third power play goal of the frame as rookie defenceman Carter Lake picked off a clearing attempt and wired the puck past Devon Pompu to make it 5-3.
Coleridge鈥檚 second of the game just 45 seconds into the third period cut the Weyburn advantage in half at 5-4; a score that would remain until Ashton Shewchuk pulled the Terriers all the way back late in the game with his team-leading 12th goal of the season to round out the scoring in a wild 5-5 draw.
Previous and next action
The Kinsmen Terriers were in action on Tuesday, January 5 against the Melville Millionaires. Reid Arnold and Ashton Shewchuk led the way scoring two goals apiece while Carter Lake, Michael Coleridge, Jonah Sutter and Josh Rohatynsky all chipped in with singles in an 8-6 Yorkton win.
The next action for the Yorkton Kinsmen Terriers will be this weekend when they once again pay a visit to Wilcox to take on the Notre Dame Argos.
