The Yorkton RawTec Maulers have been off to one of their best starts in recent memory this year, but as of late the team has struggled, dropping a pair of road games recently to fall to fifth place in the 12-team SMAAAHL with a record of 14-8-1 and 29 points.
The Regina Pat Canadians (16-4-3) and Notre Dame Hounds (17-8-1) are tied for the top spot with 35 points, two up on third place Moose Jaw (15-5-3) and three ahead of the fourth place Prince Albert Mintos (15-5-2).
Yorkton sits fifth, Tisdale (13-7-3) is sixth with 29 points, Beardy鈥檚 (11-10-2) is seventh with 24 points while the Battlefords Stars hold down the eighth and final playoff spot with a record of 10-10-3 and 23 points.
The Notre Dame Argos (7-11-3) and Saskatoon Contacts (8-16-1) are tied with 17 points, followed closely by the 11th place Saskatoon Blazers (7-14-0) with 14 points while Swift Current holds down last place with a record of 5-17-1 and 11 points.
Last Thursday night the RawTec Maulers were in Regina to do battle with the league-leading Pat Canadians missing a pair of veteran forwards as Drayson Skumoski was out nursing a concussion while Damian Bentz was serving a one game suspension.
Ty Barnstable put the defending SMAAAHL champions in the lead early on only to have his goal almost immediately answered by Maulers rookie Carson Miller, who put the puck past Regina goaltender Curtis Meger for his 11th goal of the season.
A Kaeden Taphorn power play goal with 2:24 remaining in the period made it 2-1 for Yorkton and made it seem like the Maulers who take a one goal lead into the first intermission, only to have AP call up Zach McIntyre take an unnecessary interference penalty resulting in a very late Pat Canadians power play goal off the stick of Carson Focht.
Penalties continued to harm the Maulers in the second period as both Taylor Elmy and Carson Miller were sent to the sin bin for two minutes or less on different infractions.
Fortunately for Yorkton they were able to kill off the Elmy minor, but unfortunately they weren鈥檛 able to do the same for the Miller minor as Regina鈥檚 Riley Woods scored his fifth goal of the season with the man advantage to give the Pat Canadians a 3-2 lead.
That one goal lead would hold up through the next half hour of game time resulting in yet another road loss for the Maulers.
Meger picked up the win for Regina stopping 23-of-25 Yorkton shots while Jordan Schmuland did all he could to get his team the win, turning aside 46-of-49 Regina attempts on net. 鈥淗e had a strong game. Their offence comes with a lot of speed and he made some good saves to give us a chance to steal a point,鈥� said RawTec Mauler head coach Graham Garrett before adding that while Schmuland was on his game, certain members of the team were not which ultimately resulted in a loss. 鈥淚 thought certain individuals played the game that we needed them to and others didn鈥檛.
鈥淚f we don鈥檛 have all 20 guys on the bench committed to the game and all on the same page then it鈥檚 tough to win on any night.鈥�
Shutout on Sunday
On Sunday the Yorkton RawTec Maulers made the trip out to Wilcox to take on the Notre Dame Hounds, but while they made the trip their work ethic did not as the Hounds ran roughshod over the Maulers 5-0, handing Yorkton their fifth consecutive road defeat.
Edge Lambert, Kirill Tarasov and Thomas Casey had single goals for the Hounds while Lucas Fraulin tallied twice.
Reid Cooper picked up the shutout for the Hounds stopping all 25 Yorkton shots while Alex Geddes saw his quest for three straight wins come to an abrupt end as he took the loss turning aside 23-of-28 Notre Dame chances.
Following the game coach Garrett expressed his displeasure at the lack of effort that some of the members of the team were putting forth. 鈥淩ight now we just got some guys that are feeling sorry for themselves and other guys that are thinking that they don鈥檛 need to do what they need to do for the team to be successful,鈥� offered Garrett, continuing, 鈥淎ll it takes is a few guys that aren鈥檛 buying in to what needs to be done for the team to be successful to hurt the team and that鈥檚 what happens right now.
鈥淵ou talk and you have meetings and you try to challenge them in different ways to get them motivated, but in the end they have to make that decision on what they want to be. Each game every coach after a loss or two is waiting to see how players will respond. We鈥檒l see how they respond in Tisdale.鈥�
Up next
The Yorkton RawTec Maulers (14-8-1) were in Tisdale (13-7-3) last night (Tuesday), however results were unavailable at press time. The next action for the Maulers will be this weekend as they travel first to Saskatoon on Saturday night, followed by a quick turnaround game Sunday afternoon in Prince Albert.
