The Nipawin Hawks will begin a weekend home-and-home series with La Ronge on Friday at the Centennial Arena. (Clark Stork/northeastNOW staff)

By Clark Stork

Crucial contests

Hawks set for huge weekend with Ice Wolves

Jan 21, 2022 | 12:42 PM

The Nipawin Hawks have played better this week collecting a win over Melville and a shootout loss to Estevan, Friday the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) club will open a home-and-home set with the La Ronge Ice Wolves, the biggest games of the season to date.

Nipawin is a point back of the Ice Wolves for the final playoff spot, the Hawks are in 11^th place but just three points out of seventh place and five back of the sixth spot. Head coach Tad Kozun said the club has come together since the trade deadline on Jan. 10.

“It’s been awesome, we made a lot of moves and with our COVID shut down getting the guys back and the way they are coming together is something special. The belief in our room is getting higher and higher every day,” Kozun said.

The Hawks have picked up four wins in the six meetings between the clubs this season. The last two times the teams faced off the Ice Wolves collected the wins. Kozun said those games are in the past and the team is focused on the task at hand which is Friday’s home game.

“It’s obviously a huge weekend for us, I would consider this as an eight-point weekend,” he said. “You can either get ahead of them or stay where we are, I want to get ahead of these guys.”

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Despite the success this week of the win over Melville and a tough shootout loss to the top ranked Bruins Kozun said the week could have gone better. Both games saw the Hawks come out flat in the opening 20 minutes only to be held in by goaltender Harmon Laser-Hume. Kozun said the players need to be ready from puck drop.

“Our starts are going to be key, the last two games we’ve been down 1-0 after the first period. Our second period we get that killer instinct, and we start going. If we have that right off the hop we’ll have a lot of success,” he said.

Laser-Hume will make his third straight start in goal.

Faceoff is 7:30 p.m. at the Centennial Arena, Saturday’s return match up will be broadcasted on Saskatchewan’s New Beach Radio beginning at 7:15 p.m.

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clark.stork@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @ClarkStork