Dinos are rested, Huskies are battle tested

“Belief is a wonderful thing.” Huskie men’s hockey coach Brandin Cote knows his team is the underdog, on paper, entering this weekend’s best-of-three Canada West semi-final series in Calgary against the Dinos. Calgary has won 23 straight games and suffered just 3 regulation losses in the 2022-23 Canada West regular season. The Huskies are ready for the challenge following a thrilling game three overtime win over Mount Royal last Sunday to advance.

“We are playing a team that hasn’t lost in a long, long time”, said Cote. Calgary’s last loss was on October 14^th to Mount Royal. Saskatchewan does have the confidence of knowing they are capable of beating the Dinos. While Calgary took three of four from the Huskies in the regular season, Saskatchewan post a 3-1 win on October 7^th. “We’ve had tight games with these guys” Cote continued. “It’s a fine line. They’ve done a great job, but we’ve got some momentum, we’ve got belief in ourselves.”

The Huskies were diverse in their first round series against Mount Royal. In game one, Saskatchewan’s depth shone. In the game three victory, Saskatchewan’s top players came through with the line of Jared Dmytriw, Vince Loschiavo and Jaxan Kaluski connecting on the overtime winner. Goaltender Roddy Ross was solid in all three games, making 73 stops in the series.

Cote says one of the keys in this series will be taking fewer penalties. “They (Dinos) are the least penalized team in the league”, stated Cote. “We have to be disciplined”, said Cote. Calgary took just 368 minutes in penalties in 28 regular season games, while Saskatchewan gave Mount Royal 18 power chances in the first two games of the opening round of the playoffs.