Lucas Punkari
After notching 19 goals in their final two games of the NorWOSSA regular season, the Muskie boys’ hockey team is firing on all eight cylinders heading into its annual exhibition clash with the International Falls Broncos here this Friday.
“We’re feeling pretty good going into this game, especially confidence-wise,” said Grade 12 forward Jeff Davis.
“We’ve won our last eight games in a row and if we are able to take down the Broncos, that should help us out even more,” he added.
The Muskies wrapped up NorWOSSA play with a league-best 13-0-0-1 record after an 11-2 throttling of the host Dryden Eagles on Friday night.
“It was a great way to end the season,” said assistant coach Brad Gushulak.
“The game against Dryden was probably the best game that we had played all year, and as a coaching staff, we were pretty impressed that the guys were doing the things that we had talked about in practice,” he noted.
“Our passing was really good, and the way that we were going into the corners was very impressive, and that made for us having a really good game.”
Davis led the way with a hat trick and pair of assists, but still seemed to be a bit surprised about how strong his performance actually was.
“I think it was a lot of lucky bounces that led to that,” he shrugged.
“As a team, we were struggling a little bit even when we were winning recently, so we needed a big win like that,” Davis noted.
“Usually, though, against Dryden we expect it to be a really close game as they are one of the teams that are strong at the end of the season, so we certainly weren’t expecting that,” he added.
Robbie Rea, Nick Kaun, Hunter Leishman, Cole Godbout, Braedon Keast, Tarran Romyn, Aaron McDowall, and Chris Bobczynski also scored in the lopsided victory, with Josh Gouin and Ryan Windigo collecting three assists each.
Prior to that, the Muskies were in Sioux Lookout to take on the Warriors, where Tyler Mosbeck netted a hat trick to help the visitors cruise to an 8-1 triumph.
“The boys came out right off the bat and they jumped out to a 3-0 lead after nine minutes,” Gushulak recalled.
“It got a little bit chippy after that, though, and we ended up spending a lot of time playing some 4-on-4 hockey as a result.”
Also scoring for the Muskies were Rea, Keast, Windigo, McDowall, and Bobczynski.
Having earned a first-round bye in the NorWOSSA playoffs, the game against their cross-border rivals should be the proper tune-up to get the Muskies ready for the post-season.
The puck drops at 7:15 p.m. at the Ice For Kids Arena.
“It should be another good game, especially with last year’s game seeing us win in overtime,” Gushulak remarked.
“The main thing, though, is to make sure that we get through that game healthy and have no injuries going into the playoffs, as that it is very important,” he stressed.
The only issue health-wise at the moment is that of starting goalie Scott Parsons, who has been out of the lineup for the last few weeks with mononucleosis.
“Scott went back to school here at the end of last week, and he still has to go back and forth to the doctor’s a couple more times to see how he’s feeling,” Gushulak said.
“I don’t expect him to be playing for sure this week, and right now we are leaning towards having Tyson Pitkanen start in goal on Friday night,” he noted.
“But we will see how things go.”
