Yorkton's Logan Cyca tried disrupting a Nipawin Hawks goal celebration during Tuesday's SJHL matchup in Nipawin. (Clark Stork/northeastNOW Staff)

By Clark Stork

Streaking

Red-hot Hawks’ win streak now at a half dozen; oust Yorkton 5-2

Jan 25, 2023 | 10:55 AM

The Nipawin Hawks are the hottest team in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) as they continued their winning ways Tuesday taming the Terriers 5-2 at the Centennial Arena.

Riding a five-game winning streak going into the fifth and final matchup with Yorkton, the Hawks came off flying and soared to the convincing win. On the night he was honoured as Nipawin’s 2022-23 RBC Ambassador nominee, Calgary product Alex Johnson opened the scoring with his ninth goal of the season.

Just when it looked like the Hawks would take a 1-0 lead to the dressing room, the Terriers executed an offensive zone face-off to perfection scoring with half a second left in the opening period after a draw that was dropped with 2.1 seconds to play.

Nipawin didn’t let the lapse affect the result. Braxton Buckberger led the charge in period number two scoring twice and setting up Eric Robbie for another as the Hawks expanded their lead to 4-2.

F.X. Bedard capped the scoring in the third period with his eighth of the year. Nipawin fired 50 shots on Tysen Smith in the Terriers’ net. Nipawin now has eight wins in their last 10 and has the best record in the SJHL since the Christmas break. Buckberger said the team is playing its best hockey right now.

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“It’s great to see the boys going on a little bit of a roll here, we just have to keep it going,” the 19-year-old Saskatoon product said. “Two big games this weekend, it’s going to be a big test for us.”

Fortunately for the Hawks, allowing Maddox Nollski to tie the game on the face-off at the end of the first period didn’t halt their losing streak, but Buckberger said the pay provided a learning moment.

“A little breakdown, it goes to show if you take two seconds off a team can score on you, so a full 60 minutes is really important in our league,” he said.

Personally for Buckberger, he has now scored 17 goals on the campaign and seven in his last five games. The second-year Hawk said everything is going well for him during this team’s hot streak as well.

“Teammates are helping me out and putting pucks in the right areas, we’re getting behind their defence and playing fast hockey right and it’s a lot of fun to be a part of,” Buckberger said.

The Hawks are comfortably in seventh place, nine points ahead of the eighth-place club and 13 points clear of the ninth-place team.

Nipawin will now take on the SJHL’s third-place club, the La Ronge Ice Wolves in a home-and-home series this weekend starting with their final visit to the Mel Hegland Uniplex on Friday.

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clark.stork@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @ClarkStork