The final week of the North Saskatchewan River Hockey League regular season is behind us, and now the playoff season begins.
The Maidstone Jets prevailed and held on to the top spot in the standings after playing three games on the final weekend of the regular season winning twice. The Jets beat Paradise Hill 5-1, lost 5-1 to Wilkie and beat St. Walburg 6-5. Goalie Dustin MacDonald earned two more wins improving to 17-2 on the season with the third best GAA with a 2.95 mark.
Friday, Brett Harrison scored twice and had two assists while Troy Johnston, Kevin Rhinehart and Kent Sayers scored once against the Hawks. The defending champion Paradise Hill Hawks finished in eighth place with a 3-17 record and will face Maidstone in the first round.
In the two head-to-head meeting this season the Jets beat the Hawks 10-0 and 5-1. The schedule for the best of five playoff series hadn't been released at press time.
Wilkie earned the second spot in the NSRHL standings after winning twice on the final week and having the Jets beat St. Walburg.
Mike Sittler, Mitch Suchan, Rick Cey, Barrett Penner and Ryan Scheafer scored for the Outlaws in the 5-1 win over Maidstone.
The previous night, Scheafer, Penner, Cey and Brett Schell all scored singles for the Outlaws in a 4-1 win over Edam.
Brennan Weitzel was Edam's lone goal scorer in the game.
Wilkie's Nick Pernitsky earned his 12th and 13th wins on the season, second to MacDonald in that category and improved his GAA to 2.44, second to Bryan Bridges in St. Walburg in that stat.
The Outlaws will face the team that they have developed one of the league's biggest rivalries against; Edam, who finished 5-13-2 on the season.
Wilkie and Edam have faced off four times this season with Edam winning 4-1 and losing 7-5, 3-0 and most recently 4-1.
Wilkie and Edam are not strangers when it comes to playoffs. The Outlaws won the head-to-head playoff series last year three games to one, but the previous two seasons, Edam eliminated Wilkie on their way to the championship series.
St. Walburg beat Spiritwood 8-4 Saturday, but after losing to Maidstone Sunday they were forced to settle for the third place spot on the standings.
The Eagles' will be looking to get back to the league final and will have to get through Turtleford in the first round. The first game of the series is set for Saturday in St. Walburg at 8:30 p.m.
The Eagles enter the playoffs with the league's leading goal scorer and point producer, Aaron Goldade. He finished with 39 goals and 76 assists in 19 games. Unfortunately for Turtleford, Goldade has put up eight goals and three assists in their two head-to-head matchups with St. Walburg, which the Eagles won 8-0 and 8-5.
The final series may be the closest series of the first round, as the fourth place Spiritwood Timberwolves play the fifth place Meadow Lake Stampeders.
The Timberwolves finished the regular season with a 9-10-1 record while Meadow Lake was 9-11-0.
Spiritwood lost twice on the final weekend while Meadow Lake beat Turtleford 6-5, but it wasn't enough to change the standings.
Not only are the two teams a point apart in the standings, but they split the four head-to-head games this season. Meadow Lake won 6-5 and 4-2 on home ice while the Timberwolves won 6-2 and 4-2 in Spiritwood.
The entire schedule for this series has been released and Saturday game one goes in Spiritwood at 8:30 p.m. Meadow Lake hosts game two Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Game three is set for Feb. 18 in Spiritwood. Games four and five, if necessary, are set for Feb. 19 in Meadow Lake and Feb. 23 in Spiritwood.
All best-of-five series are expected to be completed by Feb. 23.
As for the five NSRHL teams playing in provincials, Turtleford was eliminated by Luseland in senior D provincials. The Tigers lost 3-0 in Turtleford Jan. 28 and the next night won 6-4, but were a goal short of forcing overtime.
In C provincials, Tuesday, Wilkie went into Kerrobert and won 3-0 in game one of the two-game total-goal series. Game two is set for Friday night in Wilkie.
Meadow Lake has been eliminated from A provincials after losing 6-2 and 4-3 to Dalmeny at the end of January.
Maidstone and St. Walburg both advanced in senior A provincials. The Eagles beat Hague by 6-3 and 8-3 scores and have started their series with Dalmeny. The Eagles won 9-1 in game one. Game two is set for Friday in Dalmeny and if needed game three goes Sunday in St. Walburg.
Maidstone won 5-3 and 6-5 over Shellbrook and advance to play Kindersley. Game one was scheduled for Wednesday with game two set for Friday night in Kindersley.
