The best time of the year to be a hockey fan will start tonight as the Flin Flon Bombers get ready to battle the Humboldt Broncos in the opening round of the SJHL Playoffs.
It will be the fourth time they have met in the last 5 years with the Bombers winning the three previous series 12 games to 2.
The interesting thing is both the Bronco wins came at the Whitney Forum as the Bombers have won every single game at the Elgar Peterson Arena.
Of course that really means nothing now, as these are two totally different teams and a totally different season.
Scott Barney was also the coach of those teams and now the Bronco's are led by former player and home town hero Brayden Klimosko who took over the Bronco's just before the start of the regular season.
Flin Flon finished the regular season at 38-13-4-1 good for 81 points and second overall. The Bronco's finished seventh overall at 28-22-3-5 and had a tough time being consistent through out the year.
Saying that, Humboldt does have some forwards that scare you including Jacob Strizzi who finished third overall in league scoring with 71 points.
Kyle Benoche, Boris Kofman and defenseman Oakley McIlwain are all strong offensively as well.
The Bombers get a big boost for this series as it is expected that Leighton Carruthers will make his much awaited return from injury tonight.
Carruthers has missed more than two months after getting injured early in January and Flin Flon really missed his leadership, skill and size down the stretch but are very excited to get him back this weekend.
Flin Flon is also led by veteran forwards Keefe Gruener and Ryder Ringor who were their top offensive threats this past year with 69 and 62 points a piece. They are also two of the best penalty killers in the league and combined for 11 short handed goals.
Playoff success always has a lot to do with goaltending and we have two of the league's best going head to head, with SJHL MVP and Goalie Of The Year Matthew Kieper for the Bombers and Dazza Mitchell for the Broncos.
Kieper led the league in save % at .935 and Mitchell was right behind him at .920, and always amps his game come play off time. Last year when Mitchell was still a member of the Weyburn Red Wings he almost stole the series against the Broncos.
I am personally looking forward to those guys going head to head in this series.
Puck drop tonight and tomorrow is 7:30 and don't forget we will broadcast every single Flin Flon Bomber playoff game on 102.9 CFAR and flinflononline.com.
