Hockey Huskies get set to play rescheduled game against Cougars

The University of Saskatchewan Huskies will be playing a rare Tuesday night game, rescheduled due to a water main break earlier this month at Merlis Belsher Place.

The Huskies will play host to the provincial rival University of Regina Cougars in Canada West men's hockey conference action. Game-time is 7 p.m.

It will be the first of three games this week for the hockey Dogs, who will host the first-place University of Calgary Dinos in Canada West conference play Friday and Saturday at Merlis Belsher Place.

Of course, there is always the danger of looking ahead to the Dinos (13-3-0) and past the Cougars, who sit in eighth place in the standings at 3-9-1.

Yet, a depleted Saskatchewan squad has struggled in recent weeks and slipped to fourth in the standings with a 9-4-2 record by losing four of its last six games.

“It's easy to overlook the bottom-place teams but I don't know how you can do that in this, the way the landscape is in our league now,” cautioned Huskies head coach Brandin Cote. “Everything 's so tight.”

Cote sees a Regina team that is playing well, coming off a sweep over the Trinity Western Spartans this past weekend.

“They're confident about themselves,” Cote said of the Cougars.

“There's always a target on our back no matter who you play, but, when you're playing a provincial rival, there's always that extra element of competitiveness and desire to beat the other team, so there's just no room for us to look ahead.”

The Dogs have scrambled to scrape together a healthy lineup over the past month. Forwards Vince Loschiavo, Aiden Bulych, Jared Dmytriw, Liam Keeler and Brayden Camrud have all missed games due to injury or sickness. Dmytriw, Keeler and Camrud have returned, but Loschiavo and Bulych remain sidelined for now

Earlier this season, the Huskies welcomed back Chantz Petruic and Dawson Holt from long-term injuries.

The constant changeover during the past two months has likely affected continuity and chemistry.

“That's a part of it, for sure,” admitted Cote, whose team settled for three of four points this past weekend at home against the Manitoba Bisons after an OT loss and win.

“I think were still improving in terms of getting to that point of being a finely tuned team, but I thought our competitiveness was good in both games (this past weekend). Manitoba gave us everything we could handle. I thought they were way better than what even we anticipated to be and so, at the end of the day, for us to get through a little bit of a lull where we hadn't strung any wins together, I thought our guys kind of really rose to the occasion when we needed to in the end to get two points on Saturday.”