The Flin Flon Bomber playoff hopes hinge in the balance of their head to head matchups with the Nipawin Hawks tonight and Tuesday.
The Hawks did themselves a huge favour in beating Melfort 4-1 at the cage last night.
Not only is Nipawin four points up on Flin Flon for the final playoff spot with a game in hand, but they have also closed the gap on Melfort for top spot in the division.
Nipawin is only two points behind Melfort, but the Mustangs do have a game in hand. Talk about timely wins, this was only the Hawks second win in their last ten games. Nipawin could out right win the division and grab the third overall seed, or miss the playoffs all together.
The Bombers will have a say in that, as they need to beat Nipawin in both games to have a chance at the post season. The first meeting is at the Whitney Forum tonight, where the Bombers beat the Hawks 6-1 on January the 8th. That was the last game with McCombie, Blair and Buffalo in the lineup.
Nipawin responded with a 4-1 win at the cage January the 21st. I thought the Bombers deserved a better fate that night, as they outskated and outshot the Hawks but simply could not score.
The Hawks have taken three out of the four meetings and will have a chance to end the Bomber season, and return the favour after Flin Flon knocked Nipawin out of the playoffs last year. The Bombers will try to shake off a 8-3 loss to Laronge on Wednesday.
Hopefully there will be a big crowd on hand to cheer the Bombers on, who have won three of their last four and have worked very hard to get back in the playoff race. Flin Flon is strting to get offense from everybody with four of their last five goals coming from defensemen.
The Bomber record stands at: 20-28-0-2 and they are 11-12-0-1 at the Whitney Forum. Niawin is 21-24-1-3 and are: 6-15-1-1 on the road.
Don't forget to bring your radios to the game tonight as you can hear all the action on 102.9 CFAR and flinflonnline.com with the Murray GM Coach's Show starting at 7:10 with the play by play at 7:30.
