CALGARY -- The Melfort Mustangs are into the semifinals at the Centennial Cup national Junior A hockey championship.
The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League champions left nothing to doubt, either, as they rolled to a 7-1 victory over the Northern Ontario champion Sudbury Cubs in their quarter-final contest on Friday afternoon at Max Bell Centre in Calgary.
As a result, the Mustangs will now face the Ontario champion Trenton Golden Hawks in the tournament semifinal at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
While the score might have been lopsided, Mustangs head coach Trevor Blevins still felt things could have been far closer given how Sudbury was able to stick with Melfort much of the contest.
“Our start was excellent and the shots were tilted, but after the first period I thought it could have gone either way when it's tight like that,” said Melfort head coach Trevor Blevins on Hockey Canada social media. “But our guys stuck to it. They definitely played the right way for most of the game if not all and they deserve the fate they got.”
As Blevins alluded to, things couldn’t have gone much better for Melfort in the opening period.
The Mustangs’ opened scoring at the 6:41 mark when Kaleb Binner jumped on a turnover in the Sudbury zone and scored the game’s opening goal on a shot from the slot. Cole Unger then made it a 2-0 with 37 seconds remaining in the period, finding time and space before putting home a shot from the right faceoff circle.
All told, Melfort would outshoot Sudbury 24-7 in the opening period.
Noah Kohan got one back for the Cubs 5:35 into the second frame, but a power play goal from Ashton Hutchison with 10:18 gone made it a 3-1 contest and Zac Sommers extended Melfort’s edge to three goals with 45 seconds left in the period.
The third period was all Mustangs, as Reilley Kotai increased their lead to 5-1 at the 9:41 mark, Byson Aikens scored an empty-netter with 5:08 to play and Ashton Paul capped scoring with a power play goal with 4:28 remaining.
Hutchinson and Paul each finished with three points on the afternoon, Kotai also had an assist.
Kristian Coombs turned aside 31 shots to secure the victory in goal, Noah Beaulne had 33 saves for Sudbury.
The Mustangs will now turn their attention to the Ontario Junior Hockey League champion Golden Hawks, who posted a 3-0-1-0 record in Group A in the round robin.
“They got speed, they got skill, they play the right way,” Blevins said. “For us we just got to keep playing our structured game and if we buy into that and play the way we can, It should be a decent result. We have to worry about our process and make sure we execute what we need to do.”
The other semifinal will see the Central Canada Hockey League champion Rockford Nationals take on the host Calgary Canucks after Rockford defeated the Northern Manitoba Blizzard 4-0 in the other quarter-final.
The two semifinal winners will play in the Centennial Cup championship game on Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Max Bell Centre.
