It was the first of many showdowns between the Flin Flon Bombers and Melfort Mustangs this season last night at the Palace.
You can give the first matchup to the hometown Mustangs, who came from behind to down the Bombers 4-3.
Melfort opened up the scoring on Dakota Boutin's first of the season at 12:27 of the opening period. Chris Rauckman would tie things up for Flin Flon with his league leading 5th of the season at 17:39 to sqare it at 1 after 1.
Flin Flon would let a 1 goal lead slip away on a couple of occasions in the second period. Austin Calladine did not take long to make his presence felt in his first game of the year, when he converted a nice feed from Alex Smith over the shoulder of Richard Palmer at 2:54.
The Stangs tied it three minutes later on Justin Boyer's first of the season, before Flin Flon would again take the lead 3-2 on some hard work from Seamus Maguire.
Adan Fauchoux scored his third of this young season to tie the game 3-3 at the 12:23 mark. The eventual game winner would come only a minute later when Cole Hyrsky buried a power play goal behind Simon Hofley.
This was the only specialty goal of the night and proved to be the differance. With the victory Melfort takes over sole possession of first place in the Sherwood Division at 2-1. Flin Flon sits in second spot at: 1-1-0-1
A big home stand for the Bombers with 5 of their next games at the Whitney Forum including the Estevan Bruins in town Friday and the new look Humboldt Broncos Saturday.
Estevan sits at : 1-2 and this will be our first look at the Bruins since their epic 5 game showdown with the Bombers in the SJHL Elimination series this past spring. Estevan has 12 players remaining from last season and it appears that Head Coach Chris Lewgood will be in a some what rebuilding process.
All of Estevan's top six scorers have graduated including high flying Austin Daae. Lewgood does feel confident that his new recruits will be able to compete night to night with any of the Bruins opponents.
No other franchise in the league had to replace as much as Humboldt did, when it was announced that legenday Coach and GM Dean Brockman had taken an assistant's job with the Saskatoon Blades.
Ryan Smith is the new man in charge, and is no stranger to junior hockey where he has been with the Selkirk Steelers of the MJHL , and has 2 coach of the year awards to his credit. The first order of buisiness will be to find a new goaltender who can play a lot of minutes. Both Ryland Pashovitz and Cade Spencer have decided to move on.
Humboldt is one of two teams in the league without a victory, but they have only played three games and have lots of time to put things together.
102.9 CFAR and flinflononline.com will have the broadcast on Saturday starting with the Murray GM Coach's Show at 7:15.
