Natives win one, drop pair

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Published on Wednesday, February 1, 2017

By Eoin Devereux

The Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

The Neepawa Natives have found themselves unable to keep pace in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s playoff race. The club has dropped six of their last seven games, including a pair of critical matches against one of the teams they’re chasing, the Dauphin Kings.

The most recent loss was a 4-1 decision on Tuesday, Jan. 31 at Dauphin’s Credit Union Centre. Justin Metcalf scored the only goal of the night for Neepawa, notching his 26th goal and 43rd point of the season.

Before the Dauphin showdown, Neepawa had a pair of games at home this past weekend. One of which had some added significance as it was the team’s 1500th game in the MJHL. The team would not disappoint the fans and former alumni in attendance, as they earned an impressive 5-4 come from behind victory over the Selkirk Steelers.

The Steelers jumped out to the early advantage and were able to secure a 3-2 lead heading into the third period. Zach Johnson and Brad Marshall scored early for the Natives. In the third, a fourth goal from the opposition seemed to put the victory on ice for the visiting Steelers. Neepawa, however, refused to give up on such an important night for the organization. Marshall added a second goal to his stat line with about 10 minutes remaining in regulation. Less than two minutes later, Nolan Richards tied things up at 4-4, with assists going to Justin Metcalf and Aston Anderson. Anderson added a goal of his own only a few minutes later, with Metcalf and Richards registering assists. That goal provided Neepawa with their first lead of the night and more importantly, energized the 512 fans in attendance. Despite a strong late game push from Selkirk to tie things up and send the night into overtime, the Natives held on for the tremendous 5-4 victory.

After the game, head coach Dustin Howden said that the never give up attitude of the entire bench was exactly what he and the coaching staff wanted to see.

“It seems as though we’re a team that never likes to do it easy, but we do seem to save the best for last. Everyone just got better as the game went on. They focused in on what needed to be done, played smart and came through when it mattered,” said Howden. “Our power-play scored tonight. The scoring was spread out amongst our lines. Even those who aren’t on the score sheet tonight contributed in other ways. Either by shutting down Selkirk’s playmakers or creating opportunities for ours. [Tyler] Gutenberg had a busy night in goal, but he answered the challenge. So this was a good night.”

The next evening, Neepawa hoped to follow up the Selkirk win with another strong effort against the Winkler Flyers.  In this game, the Natives were unable to take advantage of a tired Winkler squad, who were playing their third game in three nights, falling 4-3.

Winkler goaltender Troy Martyniuk had a sensational game. Though he only faced 23 shots in regulation, many of those were amazing goal stealing stops.

Neepawa collected the first goal when Brad Marshall notched up over Martyniuk’s shoulder less than four minutes into the game. The Flyers collected the next two goals, but Zach Johnson answered with one behind the end of the first, making it 2-2.

Winkler tallied a pair in the second and headed into the third with a two goal cushion. While Sam Stewart cut the lead in half with a power-play goal late into the third, Neepawa was simply unable to get another past Martyniuk.

These losses drop Neepawa’s regular season record to 12-28-5. They remain in 10th place, four points back of the final playoff spot. The next home game for the Natives is Wednesday, Feb. 8 versus the Swan Valley Stampeders. Start time is set for 7:30 p.m.