HUMBOLDT — A victory at home has put the Humboldt Broncos in striking distance of winning the playoff series against the La Ronge Ice Wolves.
On March 25, the Broncos won the game 4-1. The team is 3-2 in the playoff series.
James Form, a centre with the Broncos, said the series has been a battle so far.
"We came in with a really good record, beat La Ronge throughout the season," he said when asked about his frame of mind before the game. "I think coming in 2-2 struck us and put us into the reality that this isn't going to be any cakewalk. It's actually going to be a hard fought fight before we can actually win and go through."
Carter Hansen, the Broncos' assistant coach, said the team stuck to its game plan.
"We had a good idea going in – it's Game 5 – what La Ronge is doing," he said. "After that emotional game in Game 4, it lead into Game 5 and I think we played great for 60 minutes."
There was no scoring in the first period. The second period started with a goal by La Ronge's Holden Knights. Then Form scored, assisted by Cage Newans.
"I knew we were down," Form said. "It was actually a really funny situation. I looked at [Lucas] Ceccarelli and Rhett Gibson and said, 'okay, I want this one. Let's do it right now.' I hopped off the bench. It ended up on my stick."
Form then got a second goal shorthanded, assisted by Samuel Marburg.
"Marburg worked his butt off to get that puck out," Form said. "He did most of the work, honestly. He kind of put the puck down, I was able to get it. It happened. It felt really good. I'm really happy that it was the go ahead goal."
Ethan Zielke of the Broncos then finished the period by scoring a point.
In the third period the Broncos' Nicksha Eric wrapped the game up with a short-handed empty-netter.
The Broncos played an aggressive game, making 32 shots against La Ronge's Xavier Cannon, while the Ice Wolves made 21 shot against Rayce Ramsay
"I think that's a credit to us using our speed, for playing the game that we want to play," Hansen said. "We want to throw lots of pucks at the net, get pucks in in the goalie's feet, try to get rebounds and I think we stuck to that for the whole game."
The next game is in La Ronge on March 27 at 5 p.m.
"We're going to keep telling them that fourth one is the hardest one to get," Hansen said. "They're gonna be playing for their life, in front of their home crowd. It's not going to be easy."
