Another tight game in the battle of Northern Manitoba this past Friday night.
The Northern Manitoba Blizzard shook off an early 2-0 deficit and came back to beat the Bombers 4 to 3 in the shootout.
Flin Flon started well and scored two goals before the game was even 5 minutes old.
Brett Ewen got the Bombers on the board with a powerplay goal, then Pierce Yakimchuk followed that up with a quick release from the point only 29 seconds later to put Flin Flon up 2-0.
The powerplay goal by Ewen was the first given up by the Blizzard in the entire pre-season as their PK is as good as I have seen in a long time.
Around the midway point of the first period, the Blizz settled down and started to get some chances. Sam Zagari cut the lead to 2-1 when he took a nice pass in front of the Bomber net to beat Kenny Marquart low stick side.
The Blizzard scored the only two goals in the second period and both were on the powerplay courtesy of Lucas De La Salle and Marlen Edwards. The Bombers didn't have an answer for Edwards all night as he was able to generate chances every time he was on the ice. He is a very gifted skater and always gets to the net to provide pressure.
Down 3 to 2 entering the third period, once again Flin Flon would have to play catch up. They would tie up the game with less than two minutes remaining in regulation when second year defenseman Luke Lepper beat Blizzard netminder Taye Timmerman high blocker side.
Lepper has now scored in three straight pre-season games and looks like a real stud out there and should be able to provide some much needed offense from the back end.
The overtime settled nothing and once again these two teams would decide it in the shoot-out.
Once again the Bombers couldn't solve the Blizzard tender as Timmerman would turn aside all three Flin Flon shooters in Ryder Mucha, Leo Seitz and Koen Senft.
The Blizzard only needed one goal and they got it from Quincy Supprien who made a nice deek on Kenny Marquart.
Final shots through overtime were 37 to 34 Blizzard who went with two goalies including Alexander Reedy who stopped 8 of 10 before giving way to Taye Timmerman who stopped 23 of 24.
Kenny Marquart went the whole game for Flin Flon and made 33 saves on 36 shots.
Flin Flon will finish the pre-season at 3-0-0-2 while the Blizzard finish at a perfect 5-0.
Now both teams will prepare for the regular season as the Bombers will play their home opener against the Nipawin Hawks on Friday before heading to Melfort on Saturday.
Friday's game will start at 7:30 and the game in Melfort will kick off at 8:30 Manitoba time and will both be broadcast on 102.9 CFAR and flinflononline.com.
The Bombers have also announced that they have added 2007 born left handed defenseman Emerson Clark from the WHL'S Brandon Wheat Kings. Clark has spent the last two seasons with the Saskatoon Blazers of the Saskatchewan Midget Triple A league helping guide that team to back to back championships.
In 68 regular season games Clark picked up 2 goals and 22 assists.
