The Melfort Mustangs are on the road tonight to meet the Melville Millionaires. The SJHL is now out of the Showcase break and with a few dark days between games the entire league gets back to regular season contests today. The chase for playoff positioning is on with 18-19 games remaining for most teams.
For the Mustangs(27-7-4-1), they’ve won 7 straight contests and have really jumped into the race with Battlefords and Nipawin for one of the top spots in the SJHL Standings. In doing so they’ve opened a nice gap between the rest of the field trying to chase them down from behind. As of the Showcase break Melfort sits 9 points up on Estevan and 11 points up on Notre Dame and Weyburn.
The biggest news of the day for the Melfort Mustangs in the commitment of two players to post secondary institutions last night, within minutes of each other. Loch Morrison has committed to Acadia University, which is a Hockey Program playing in the Canandian U Sports. Evan Plotnik made his commitment to American International College also last night. AIC is an NCAA Div 1 Hockey Program based out of Massachusetts.
The Melville Millionaires(13-24-0-2) have dropped their last 3 games to sit in 10th in the SJHL Standings. Melville has been hanging into the final playoff spot in the SJHL for quite some time now as they sit 9 points up on their biggest rival Yorkton, and 7 points back of Flin Flon for 9th.
Leading Scorers:
Melfort
Loch Morrison 14G, 29A- 43P
Kalem Zary 7G, 25A- 32P
Justin Ball 15G, 14A- 29P
Colin Schmidt 15G, 13A- 28P
Reed Gunville 7G, 21A- 28P
Melville
Isaac Embree 11G, 20A- 31P
Damian Bentz 13G, 15A- 28P
Clayton Eisler 12G, 15A- 27P
Dayton Heino 9G, 18A- 27P
Ethan Kopyczyn 5G, 16A- 21P
Goaltenders:
Melfort
Evan Plotnik (18-5-3-1) 0.927 Sv%, 2.13 GAA
Hunter Arps (9-2-1-0) 0.898 Sv%, 2.64 GAA
Melville
Colby Entz(10-16-0-2) 0.903 Sv%, 3.17 GAA
Brandon Wells(1-2-0-0) 0.902 Sv%, 2.94 GAA
Tonight’s game from Melville begins at 7:30pm and there will not be a broadcast on CK750. The Mustangs return home tomorrow evening to host the Humboldt Broncos.
