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Broncos shutout Mustangs to win series and Bourgault Cup

Check mate. After five tough games the Humboldt Broncos are Bourgault Cup champions. The Broncos wrapped up the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League quarterfinal series victory with a 3-0 shutout win over the Melfort Mustangs in game five in Melfort.

Check mate.

After five tough games the Humboldt Broncos are Bourgault Cup champions.

The Broncos wrapped up the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League quarterfinal series victory with a 3-0 shutout win over the Melfort Mustangs in game five in Melfort.

Broncos head coach Darcy Haugan called it a critical win, noting it was important to end the series as quickly as possible.

“You obviously want to not give a team any life and we were fortunate we got a great performance from (goaltender Parker) Tobin and our top scorers scored.”

The March 24 victory gave the Broncos a 4-1 series win over the Mustangs, and sends them to the semi-finals where they will take on the Nipawin Hawks.

That series will be a rematch of last year’s SJHL quarterfinals, which saw the Hawks sweep passed the Broncos.

As was the case through much of the series, the Broncos’ top line enjoyed an excellent evening as the trio of Jaxon Joseph, Logan Schatz, and Nick Shumlanski finished with three goals and six points in the win.

Those five points gave the trio 26 points in the five game win.

“We were able to execute our game plan to a T. We wanted our power play to obviously be big. We didn’t expect it to be that big so we’re very fortunate. You need your top guys to be your best guys and they were,” noted Haugan.

Joseph currently sits in a tie for first in goals, while Shumlanski is tied for first in points.

After scoring the overtime winner in game four, Brayden Camrud added the other assist for the Broncos, while Parker Tobin made 37 saves for his first career SJHL playoff shutout.

Tobin was exceptional after coming into the series prior to game three.

Tobin registered a 3-0 record with a .99 goals against and a .968 save percentage.

Haugan admitted it was nice to be rewarded for making the switch.

“He had that 6-0 shut out at the Family Day game so he’s had some success and we knew we were probably going to be using both goalies at some point. Tobin played really well for us.”

Joseph got the party started for the Broncos scoring his sixth of the series, as he continued to haunt his former team.

That goal gave the Broncos a 1-0 lead after the opening 20 minutes, despite the Mustangs carrying a 20-10 edge in shots on goal.

Haugan admitted he did not expect his club to be on their heels for the whole period, noting he hoped it would only last for five or ten minutes, but gave Melfort a lot of credit.

“Melfort stepped up all night, they were relentless. Obviously our guys did a good job of keeping everything to the outside and didn’t allow them to penetrate to the middle of the ice. We did get a couple of breaks so we did get lucky but all-in-all to escape with a 1-0 lead after one, we’ll gladly take it.”

Schatz extended the Broncos’ lead to two with his second of the series, on the power play, just 51 seconds into the second period.

After the Mustangs dominated the opening 20 on the shot clock, the second period evened out as the Mustangs managed just a 12-10 edge in shots.

Heading into the third up by two, with the series on the line, the Broncos made sure to put a quick end to the series.

Shumlanski extended the Broncos’ lead to three with his fourth of the series, breaking in on a breakaway and beating Plotnik at 10:03 to put the Broncos ahead 3-0.

That was all the offense the Broncos would need as they locked the third period down.

The Broncos wrapped up game five 1-for-5 with the man advantage giving them an 11-for-26 conversion rate in the series.

The Mustangs meanwhile, were scoreless in seven chances with the man advantage, as their power play let them down in the series managing just three goals on 25 opportunities.

The Broncos will look to keep the momentum rolling when they visit the Hawks for game one on March 30.

Game two will be in Nipawin on March 31, before the series reverts back to Humboldt for games three and four, April 3 and 4.