PEDAL TO THE MEDAL
Huskies in hunt for home ice
It doesn’t take falling gas prices to give the University of Saskatchewan men’s hockey team an extra excuse to put the pedal to the metal.
With eight games remaining in the Canada West conference’s regular season, the Hockey Dogs are still skating full-steam ahead as they eye up first place and home ice throughout the playoffs.
The Huskies — who fly to Vancouver for a pair of games Friday and Saturday against the British Columbia Thunderbirds before playing host to the Manitoba Bisons the following weekend — are 17-3-0 courtesy of an 8-3 win over the Calgary Dinos on Saturday at Rutherford Rink.
A playoff berth is already clinched.
“(The previous) Saturday in Lethbridge and (Saturday) against Calgary, our purpose has been bigger than some of the teams we’ve been playing and it showed,” says U of S head coach Dave Adolph. “If you have a purpose to what you want accomplished, you can play the game the way it should be played.”
Last season, Saskatchewan was 10-15-3 and just squeaked into the playoffs in the sixth and final spot.
This season, there appears to be no letting up.
“Obviously, it’s huge,” said rookie forward Kohl Bauml, who had a goal and two assists in Saturday’s win. “There aren’t a lot of games in this league so every point counts and, every weekend, you’ve got to try and get four points. We did a good job of that (on the weekend). Friday wasn’t our best performance, but we put our foot down on the pedal (Saturday) and came out with the big win.”
Saskatchewan is five points up on a pair of bitter rivals, the Alberta Golden Bears and Mount Royal Cougars. Maintaining a top-two position and home-ice advantage in the playoffs is paramount.
“That was our goal from the start of the year,” said Bauml. “Obviously, some older guys would know better than me on how important that is, but any time you can have home-ice advantage, especially in a three-game series where all three games are at home, having home ice is huge in playoffs.”
Daylan Gatzke and Jaimen Yakubowski both scored their first goals as Huskies in Saturday’s victory. Kendall McFaull, Jordan Fransoo, Andrew Johnson, Cameron Blair and Parker Thomas rounded out the scoring.
Bauml netted a nifty shorthanded tally of the highlight-reel variety.
“It’s just a play that, honestly, has never worked for me in a game,” admitted Bauml. “I just cut across, put it underneath his skate and ducked around him, got it underneath his arm, and I smacked it in.”