It’s on to the postseason for the Selkirk Fishermen who’ll get set to clash in the first round with the La Broquerie Habs this week.
The Fishermen closed out the regular season on a high note with a 5-2 win over the Beausejour Comets on Sunday afternoon.
Despite multiple players out with injuries and suspensions, the Fishermen rallied for goals in each period, coming off the sticks of Ty Johnson, Karter Andrushko, Ashton Schroeder, Jacob Naherny and Zach Lemire.
Marcus Sharpe was also stellar, stopping 22 of 24 for his eighth win in the pipes this season.
The Fishermen improved to 12-14-0-1-3 with the win and finished with 41 points.
“We’ve been playing pretty good in the past few months, we finished up before the Christmas break playing some pretty good hockey and added some bodies in the new year,” said head coach Chris Poponick. “Now we’ve got the team playing the way we want them to play and that’s just a matter of us being patient, consistent, and sticking with the system and style of play that we’re looking for. I think we’ll see some success if we can manage to do that and hopefully put some pucks past the La Broquerie goaltender who’s been stonewalling us for almost all the games we’ve played against them.”
Record Photo by Rayme Thomson
Game’s One and Two of the best of five will be played at Selkirk Recreation Complex while Game’s Three, Four, and Five will be played at the HyLife Centre in La Broquerie.
For the Habs, it’s the franchise’s first-ever trip to the CRJHL playoffs after joining the league at the beginning of the season.
The Fishermen are hoping to get back to CRJHL glory after falling short in the semi-finals last year.
Poponick said they’ll need to set the tone in the early going to take advantage of home ice in the opening two games.
“It’s absolutely huge right, we’ve got to come out with good momentum and hopefully carry it over from our Beausejour game the other night and take the play to them right away and set the tone right off the bat,” said Poponick. “A lot of times when you play a team like that that’s fairly new, we don’t know a lot of their players very well and you kind of go into it not sure how to drive the play but more than anything we’ve got to realize we need to take the play to them and make them come up to our level because we can actually reach a pretty good level when we get going. It’s going to be a matter of dictating the pace.”
Round One Schedule:
Game 1: Thursday, Feb. 20, 8 p.m. at Selkirk Recreation Complex
Game 2: Sunday, Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m. at Selkirk Recreation Complex
Game 3: Tuesday, Feb. 25, 8 p.m. at HyLife Centre
Game 4: Saturday, March. 1, 7 p.m. at HyLife Centre
Game 5: Sunday, March. 2, 7 p.m. at HyLife Centre
