The post Doug Johnson era begun last night for the Nipawin Hawks who tried to cool off one of the league's best clubs, the Flin Flon Bombers.

 

Young Tad Kozun has been thrown the reigns and I thought the Hawks responded despite the 3 to 2 loss.

 

The first 6 minutes flew by and it looked like we may get some exciting end to end action but Nipawin eventually  slowed down the game and it became tight checking.

 

No goals in the first, but the Bombers opened things up in the second when Mackenzie Carson took advantage of a Hawk miscue at centre ice.

 

The Hawks looked like they were going to get a chance to enter the Bomber zone,  but mishandled the puck and Carson scooched over the Nipawin blue line and fooled Laser Hume.

 

Nipawin did respond with a 5 on 3 PP goal from Braxton Buchberger just 5 minutes later and were very much in the game and were not allowing a lot of quality chances against. 

 

The red hot Jacob Vockler helped  the Bombers restore the lead early in the third when he added his 7th on the Power Play. Vockler now has points in 10 straight games.

 

Matt Raymond would then have a puck re-direct off his back from a nice shot from the blue line courtesy of Cory King. This was a big goal and the eventaul game winner as Nipawin wasn't quite done yet.

 

Alex Johnson scored a short handed goal with just 36 seconds left in regulation when he went in alone on Cal Schell and scored five hole.

 

This gave the Hawks lots of life but the Bombers held on and picked up their 19th win in the process.

 

Flin Flon improves to 19-8-0-1 and have a 6 point lead on Melfort for top spot in the Sherwood Division and both the Bombers and Stangs have played 28 games.

 

Nipawin will fall to 10-14-0-5 and are in the basement of the Sherwood and sit 9th overall, currently out of the playoffs.

 

The Bombers will get a chance to get more points this weekend as they welcome the last place Weyburn Red Wings to town Friday and Saturday.

 

The Wings have only 7 wins this year but if the SJHL and hockey has taught us anything that you can never over look your opponent. They will have nothing to lose.

 

We will broadcast Friday's game on 102.9 CFAR and flinflononline.com beginning with the Great North GM Coach's Show at 7:15 and drop of the puck at 7:30.