The Craik Warriors senior hockey team are expecting a long playoff run this winter, but to do so they first have to get their game going against the Young Comets and Bethune Bulldogs.
Derik Hassett, a defenceman and assistant captain of the Warriors (13-4-4), said their 9-5 first game win over the Comets (8-12-1) in the opening best-of-five Wheatland Hockey League (WHL) series was alright, but it wasn’t their best hockey of the year. He said they have to get stronger in their own zone heading into games two and three Feb. 14 and 16 while keeping their offence clicking at the rapid pace it has been all season long.
“We gave up five goals, so we’ve got to lock down defensively a little better,” said Hassett. “Other than that if we score nine we’ll win every night.”
Hassett said their top line this season of Josh Richardson (16 goals and 32 points in 20 games) and Ryan Usher (20 goals and 38 points in 21 games) along with anyone else that gets an opportunity to play with the two scorers have been leading the charge for them and that continued into their first league playoff game with Usher picking up a hat trick. He said the team has also been helped by goaltender Nathan Heinen (2.75 GAA in 17 games) this season and it is hoped that his strong play keeps going as they move further into the playoffs.
“We had a real good run (this season),” he said. “We’re happy being in second place (in the WHL standings) and we put ourselves in a pretty good spot heading into playoffs. We’ve got home ice for a couple rounds and we’ll see how it plays out.”
Heinen said the team is playing “good hockey” right now and as long as they keep things simple on the ice they should be fine. He said their strength during the regular season was special teams play, which is actually the thing that cost them in game one of their 8-2 loss Feb. 9 to the Bethune Bulldogs (12-6-1) in provincial ‘D’ playoff action, so that needs to come back if they want to make a provincial playoff run.
“Bethune’s got a pretty good team and we were short a few guys, but (we need) to stay out of the box,” said Heinen, noting their second game in the two-game points total series is Feb. 15 at Bethune. “We got into some penalty trouble and they got a lot of power play goals and it showed. They have a good power play. If we stay out of the box and play five-on-five against them, we’ll make it a close game. I don’t know if we’ll be able to win, but we’ll hopefully make it a better game.”
To read more please see the Feb. 17 print edition of The Davidson Leader.