Broncos fall behind top teams
The Swift Current Broncos were unable to keep pace with a pair of Eastern Conference opponents on home ice last week as they lost both games.
Friday, the Broncos stayed with the Medicine Hat Tigers for two-and half periods before falling 4-1. Their undoing came partly on special teams as they were not whistled for a single penalty, but failed to score on five power play attempts despite generating plenty of quality scoring opportunities.
The Broncos took the lead with 4:21 remaining in the first period when Eric Houk converted a second chance opportunity for his fifth goal of the season.
The Broncos had most of the scoring chances in the second period and hit the post on three occasions before Bryan Lockner scored with 3:13 remaining to tie the game.
The Tigers took their first lead when Ryan Chyzowski’s two-on-one pass went off a skate and in midway through the third period for the game winner. James Hamblin hit the 30-goal plateau 1:04 later when his screened shot deflected in to put the game out of reach. Parker Gavlas closed the scoring with a highlight reel effort culminating in a backhanded goal to the top corner.
Isaac Poulter fell to 9-22-1-2 despite making 35 saves. Garin Bjorklund made 23 saves to improve to 17-3-0-0.
Saturday, the Broncos lost a third straight game in a 4-1 loss to the visiting Prince Albert Raiders.
After a scoreless opening frame, the Raiders scored a power play goal 45 seconds into the middle stanza when Ozzy Weisblatt notched his 20th goal of the season. They quickly added another power play goal from Zack Hayes midway through the period. They scored another goal on a screened point shot when Jeremy Mesella found the back of the net after the media timeout.
Matej Toman broke the shutout with 6:34 remaining when he roofed his own rebound for his first goal with the Broncos. Evan Herman added an empty net goal to seal the win.
Poulter fell to 9-22-1-2 with 29 saves. Carter Serhyenko improved to 6-4-0-1 with 23 saves.
The Broncos fell to 10-34-1-3, while Prince Albert improved to 27-14-5-4.
“I liked our effort a lot better last night,” said head coach Dean Brockman. “I thought the first period we were fine, we did some good things. Then we lost the period and we lost the game. That’s kind of repetitive. I thought in the second period we didn’t capitalize on the power play and we didn’t have a lot of second effort. In the third it looked like we were a little bit hesitant to do anything. We have to take chances and we have to go for it and I think we were just sitting back too much.”