It seemed like yesterday the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) dropped the puck on the 2024-25 regular season.
Tonight, the Humboldt Broncos will close out the regular season in Nipawin against the Hawks. The good news for the Broncos, their season will not conclude as they have clinched a playoff spot, where they finish remains undetermined.
Heading into Friday night’s action, the Broncos lead the Battlefords North Stars by one point for sixth spot in the standings. If Humboldt beats Nipawin on Friday, then Battlefords will have to win their final two games against Kindersley in order to move ahead of the Broncos in the standings.
But if Humboldt loses to Nipawin, Battlefords will only need two points to jump past the Broncos in the standings.
Whoever finishes sixth will meet the Weyburn Red Wings in the playoffs while the seventh-place team will head north to meet the Flin Flon Bombers in the first round.
Regardless of who the Broncos meet in the playoffs, one aspect the team will need to improve on is their powerplay. The green and gold have not scored on their last 16 powerplay opportunities with their last goal on the extra-man advantage coming on February 28 in their victory over the Yorkton Terriers. With one game left, the Broncos have the 11th ranked powerplay unit in the SJHL at 17.7%, the only team behind Humboldt is Nipawin.
After they were unable to capitalize on their six powerplay chances in their 3-2 loss to Weyburn on Tuesday, Assistant Coach Carter Hansen says their powerplay struggles are caused by a lack of execution.
“There is no surprise anymore, everyone has seen everyone enough, and they just have to execute.”
On the end of the special teams, the Broncos penalty kill unit is the third best in the SJHL at 84.4%.
With the Broncos loss on Tuesday, Battlefords is now the team who controls their destiny for sixth place. Hansen says they will treat the regular season finale as a must win game and hope for the best with the results of the North Stars and Klippers games.
“We just have to take care of what we can take care of,” said Hansen, “we will go into Nipawin, have a game plan, we got to execute as best we can and then we will see how the cards fall on Saturday.”
This season, Humboldt has defeated Nipawin in two of the three matchups.
Despite their season ending tonight, the Hawks have enjoyed a strong finish to their regular season, winning seven of their last ten games, including a victory over Flin Flon on Tuesday.
Coverage for tonight’s game on Bolt FM begins at 6:45 with the opening faceoff at 7:00.