The Humboldt Broncos season is on the line tonight.
For the first time, the Broncos will be facing elimination after the Flin Flon Bombers picked up a dominating 9-0 win on Saturday to get a 3-2 series lead.
Nine different Bomber players contributed to the scoresheet.
Flin Flon only led 1-0 after 20 minutes as Anthony Piccininno opened the scoring with a short-handed marker.
In the second period, the Bombers exploded with four goals in less than five minutes.
The third period was the same story as Flin Flon finished off with four more goals to make the final 9-0.
Matthew Kieper earned the shutout making 27 saves.
On the other side, Dazza Mitchell made 21 saves through 40 minutes. Brady Holtvogt came on in relief for the third period and had 16 saves.
Flin Flon was 3/7 on the power play, while the Broncos were unable to convert on their four attempts.
After the game Associate Coach Carter Hansen said regardless of the score in Game 5, the Broncos need to move on quickly.
“Be angry about it tonight, but we don’t really have time to dwell on it this one, so as much as it’s a big score, we just don’t have the time right now, we just have to get worried about next game on Monday and keep going from there.”
Hansen pointed out with the lopsided score, the Broncos did rest some players in the third period of Saturday’s Game 5, with them still feeling the effects of a pair draining overtime victories at the Elgar Petersen Arena.
With Humboldt missing Connor Miller up front, they were forced to use only 11 forwards on Saturday, Hansen said in the postgame that they didn’t receive any further injuries in Flin Flon.
“I think a lot of our guys just ran out of steam, we were just short-manned, but we’ve been doing this for two months, I don’t know if it’s starting to catch up to us.”
Hansen added that over the last couple of months the Broncos have been digging deep to field a full lineup.
“They got to be able to do that a couple of more times, if we want to move on in the series, but hopefully we got a couple of guys coming back on Monday.”
With the home squad winning the first five games of the series, the Broncos hope that trend continues for one more game, to set up a deciding Game 7 back at the Whitney Forum.
Coverage for tonight’s game on Bolt FM begins at 7:15 and the opening faceoff is 7:30.