Bisons back into playoffs

Times Editor

 

On the heels of a pair of losses, the UFA Bisons are backing into the first round of the playoffs.

The local triple-A midget team completed the AMHL regular season with a 3-0 loss to the Lloydminster Bobcats on Feb. 9 and a 2-1 defeat to the Calgary Northstars the following day.

The Bisons, who finished the season with a mediocre record of 16-16-2, will now take a week off while the rest of the league finish the regular season.

“You’re .500, so you never want to say that you’re happy, but it has been a learning experience for us as a coaching staff and for the players,” said head coach Jeremy Friesen of the regular season. “We talked in the room how it has been a tale of four seasons for us … we started out, we had the goalie issue we had to go through, restarted from there and had success, won six in a row.

“Then after Christmas, we hit the reset button again – the Mac’s tournament didn’t treat us very well – and we came out and won four in a row.

“Now we’re heading into the playoffs, so we need to refocus, recharge, get rested and healed up and hopefully repeat that trend (after a break).

“Every time we’ve (reset after a break), we’ve had success and there is no reason we can’t do it again.”

The Bisons opened the final two games of the season on home ice with a loss to the Bobcats, one of the top team in the North Division.

“It was one of those games where we got down early,” assessed Friesen. “In the second period we had a ton of opportunities again and their goalie made some big saves – and again, we missed the net and our power play didn’t help us out … that ended up killing us.”

After the loss, Friesen liked the way the Bisons responded the following day versus a very desperate Calgary Northstars team.

Even though the Northstars took a 1-0 first period lead, the Bisons finally got on the board with 3:09 left in the second period, when Matt Forchuk converted a feed from Connor Boyd and Ryan Zeniuk.

Despite dominating the play and outshooting the Stars 38-24, the Bisons gave up the final goal with 44 seconds left.

“At the end of the day, I’m happy with the way we played today,” said Friesen after the game. “I thought we battled, competed really hard and kept things simple. We took pucks to the net and their goalie played really well. We missed the net on a couple of high scoring chances – we had two breakdowns and they scored two goals.”

Despite not solidifying a playoff spot with a win, the Bisons heard shortly after their final game that the team chasing them, the Calgary Flames, lost to Lethbridge. As a result, the Bisons clinched the fourth seed in the division and will have home ice when they open the post-season versus the Flames.

Game 1 of the best-of-three series is slated for Feb. 21 at the Strathmore Family Centre. Game time is set for 6:45 p.m. The remainer of the schedule will be released next week.