The Flin Flon Bombers have advanced to the SJHL Semi- Finals after a gutsy 3-1 in Weyburn Saturday to eliminate the Wings in 5 games.

 

It took all of 15 seconds for the Bombers to hit the score sheet, when Adam Wilson flipped a puck over a Weyburn d-man and went in on a 2 on 1 firing a shot at Jack Burgart with the rebound coming right out front to Nick Shumlanski who buried his first of the series.

 

Brandon Switzer would turn his game up with a pair of goals including a power play goal late in the second, slapping a puck top left hand corner on Burgart who didn't get a good read on it.

 

Switzer would get a big insurance goal early in the third converting a beautiful feed from Joel Kocur.

 

This was huge because Weyburn would get a few chances in the third on the power play and finally got a puck past Brandon Newton when Mellon converted on his second of the series midway through the period.

 

Weyburn would pepper the Bombers and Newton the last 7 minutes of the game and did a good job keeping the pressure on and even with the goalie pulled for the extra attacker could not get the score closer. It appeared Weyburn had made it a 1 goal game, but the referee waved it off and said the puck was kicked in.

 

Brendon Newton was nothing short of amazing and was one of the big differences in the series, winning 4 straight games including 1 shutout and a save % of .964. You also have to give Weybun goalie Jack Burgart a lot of credit who did everything but score goals. He finished the series with a save % of .942. They are the top ranked goalies in the playoffs right now.

 

Newton talks about what it was like to be in the net the final 7 minutes of Saturday's win. " I am thinking 30 seconds, 1 minute at a time , just kill off another minute til the final buzzer."

 

I also asked him if their was a turning point for him that he remembered from earlier in the season. " I think it was a game against Melfort after Christmas when Robs got hurt and I came in after the first period. That is when the roll started, getting that win against Melfort gave me the confidence to be able to do this."

 

Newton is on an incredible roll and is 14-1 since January the 1st.

 

Three out of the four remaining teams playing for the Canalta Cup are out of the Sherwood Division after Nipawin took out Estevan last night.

 

Flin Flon will now enjoy a few days off before heading to Battleford Friday to take on the top team from the regular season who finished with 90 points and only lost 4 games at home all season. The Bombers were one of the teams to beat them at the Civic Centre.

 

The Bombers did take 4 out of the 6 matchups including all 3 at the Whitney Forum, but again playoffs are a totally different season as we found out with the last series.

 

Battleford was a little banged up against Kindersley and Flin Flon will still have Leonidas, Masson,Lavallee and Lesko out for 1 more game for their suspensions in which they picked up after game 4. So game 1 friday will be very interesting.

 

Here is the schedule for the upcoming series.

 

 

All games will be broadcast on 102.9 CFAR and flinflononline.com.