It's safe to say it was a frustrating weekend for the Estevan Bruins.
The Bruins were far from impressive in a 6-5 win over the last-place Melfort Mustangs Friday at home and then allowed three third-period goals in a 5-4 road loss to the Melville Millionaires on Saturday.
The Bruins (14-8) remain two points ahead of Weyburn for first place in the Sherwood Conference entering Saturday's home game against the La Ronge Ice Wolves.
On Friday, the Bruins found themselves down 3-1 to the Mustangs (4-15-1-1) midway through the second period before mounting a comeback fuelled largely by a Dylan Smith hat trick.
"I wasn't pleased with much of it other than the fact that we got two points. I'm very disappointed with the way we started the game, actually right through until the end of it," said head coach Keith Cassidy.
"We didn't do anything that we had talked about prior to the game. We talked about challenging ourselves to play to the best of our ability and however many people were in attendance clearly saw that we didn't do that."
Melfort broke the ice 33 seconds in when Avery Van Blaricom fed a centring pass to Curtis Fontaine, who was untouched in front and lifted a shot over the glove of Bruins starter Brandon Stone.
Estevan countered eight minutes later when Ben Johnstone kept the play alive and set up Calder Neufeld for his league-leading 19th goal of the year.
The Mustangs took a 2-1 lead eight minutes later when Anthony Pickering was allowed to walk in for a point-blank chance and his blocker-side wrist shot glanced off Stone before fluttering into the net.
Pearce Gourley extended the visitors' lead at 11:35 of the second on a five-hole shot that Stone got a piece of but couldn't stop from trickling in.
The Bruins would level the score with a pair of goals separated by 61 seconds late in the period. Taylor Reich converted on a last-second feed from Cole Olson on a shorthanded odd-man rush, followed by a Smith deflection on a Dom Perrault point shot.
Following a Brendan Tash shorthanded goal 68 seconds into the third period, the Bruins again scored two quick ones to take their first lead of the night.
Smith scored his second of the evening at the seven-minute mark off a cross-ice pass from Olson, and 47 seconds later, Matt Brykaliuk squeezed a bad-angle shot between Mustangs goalie Jesse Ehnisz and the left post. Brykaliuk was reunited with fellow rookies Jesse Bernard and Tanner Froese.
"They were limited in their ice time through stretches there because we took some horrendously stupid penalties, but when they were out there, I thought they represented themselves well," Cassidy said. "They got a huge goal for us and if not for that, I might still be ranting and raving in the dressing room."
Smith rounded out his hat trick with an empty-netter, but the Mustangs weren't done fighting, adding a fifth goal by Carter Berg with 36 seconds left. Shots on goal were 46-28 for the Bruins. Smith acknowledged that it was a sub-standard effort against the Mustangs.
"We gotta learn that (when) we come out against a team like that, we gotta play at our level, not theirs. It's a big two points for us, but we've gotta come out with a better performance than that."
In Melville, the Bruins led 3-2 after 40 minutes but gave the game away in the third.
"I thought going into the third period we were on an upward trend in terms of how we were playing, but we misfired on things," said Cassidy. "We showed some perseverance in battling back and getting at least the one goal, but we gotta stop shooting ourselves in the foot."
Smith was again the star, scoring twice in a span of under three minutes in the second period and adding two assists. Olson and Perrault had the other Bruin goals, with Neufeld and Brykaliuk adding two assists each.
Michael Desjarlais, Russell Trudeau, Michael Sagen, Lee Christensen and Dustin Eberle scored for the Mils. Steven Glass turned aside 46 of 51 shots in the Bruins' cage, with Melville's Alex Wakaluk stopping 28 of 32.
The Bruins lost veteran defenceman Connor Milligan to an injury on the first shift of the game, and even with Brykaliuk moving back to the blueline, keeping everyone fresh was a struggle.Brykaliuk was a defenceman until his midget days and Cassidy said he was impressive in a one-off role
.
"He's comfortable playing the back end and he certainly didn't look out of place. With his vision and patience with the puck, he moves it real well," Cassidy said.
Natural defenceman Eric Baldwin continued to play on the wing, with Cassidy saying he'll likely stay there for the near future.
"He's kind of the gritty, grinding winger we've been looking for. We've been looking for him and he happens to be on our team. He brings an energy that I really, really appreciate."
The Bruins played both games without captain Josh Jelinski and defenceman Austin Yano. Jelinski is being re-evaluated today and his status for Saturday's game is unclear, as is Milligan's. Yano suffered a groin injury in practice on Friday but is expected to play against the Ice Wolves.
