Six different players had multi-point nights as the Swift Current Broncos beat the Regina Pats 6-2 on Wednesday night.
The win pulled the Broncos within six points of the Pats for top spot in the WHL East Division with a re-match between the two teams on Friday in Regina.
"I really liked our game," said Broncos Associate Coach Darren Evjen. "I thought our guys really stepped up tonight and played a good sixty minutes. Against a system that's big time pressure and a Regina team that's on a roll I thought we really answered the bell."
Rookies Jake DeBrusk and Glenn Gawdin each had two points and were a big part of the victory.
"They're going to be fun to watch for a few years," Evjen said. "They started out the year as good players it's just a matter of getting their details down a little bit. They can both handle the puck, they can both score, they can both see the ice really well and now they're starting to play off the puck better."
DeBrusk scored twice and was close to his first career hat trick.
"I just felt like I had some jump," he said. "Even after the first shift it seemed like I was winning battles, seemed I was getting puck bounces. I just tried to get to the net, feed off (Graham Black and Jay Merkely) and a couple went in."
One of his goals came on a deflection and another from jamming a puck in a pile in front of the net. It's an area where he feels like he can have success.
"I think I'm pretty good down low and in the corners," DeBrusk said. "I've been pretty good at tips all my life so I just go to the net and most of my goals have been those."
Coda Gordon scored once and had two assists, Gawdin and Colby Cave each had a goal and an assist, while Graham Black and Nathan Burns chipped in with two assists each. Jay Merkley also scored for Swift Current.
It was the return to the lineup for Burns after three games out injured and his 300th career game.
"That was a huge game for us," Burns said. "The standings... we look at them every day and see where we stand and how important the games are. If you look at the games tonight I think a lot of our division is winning tonight so we've just got to take care of ourselves. To get to a big start like that to this team with them down a couple of their top players that took the confidence away from them really quickly."
The Pats were missing some key talent to injuries and illness like Morgan Klimchuk, Boston Leier and Dryden Hunt.
Brandon beat Lethbridge to stay two points back of the Broncos and close to eight points back of Swift Current. Prince Albert lost in Everett and are sitting ninth in the conference, seven points back of the Broncos in sixth.
Swift Current went 3 for 7 on the power play and held Regina to 0 for 5.
"The penalty kill was unbelievable," Evjen said. "I think the anchor of that has to be Eetu (Laurikainen). I thought he made some great saves tonight. It's easy to say when you're scoring six that you played really good, which we did, but there were times when it was tight when I thought Eetu made some big saves to keep us in it."
Laurikainen stopped 27 of the 29 shots he faced. The Broncos scored 3 times on Daniel Wapple on 16 first period shots before he gave way to Dawson MacAuley in the second period. He stopped 22 of 25 Swift Current shots in the second and third periods.
Swift Current has won all five games in the season series. They visit the Pats on Friday for the final game between the two clubs this regular season.
You can hear the game on The Eagle 94.1 FM with Pioneer Co-op Home Centre Broncos Hockey at 6:30pm.
Wed, Apr 24, 10:00 AM
Agriculture, Transport
Featured
