The Bombers ended La Ronge's season and found out their first round playoff opponents on the final day of the regular season, beating the Ice Wolves 4-1 at the Whitney Forum.
Flin Flon took the lead early, Koen Senft put up a hat-trick and the Bombers held off a balanced yet desperate La Ronge attack, keeping the Ice Wolves on the outside looking in.
La Ronge nearly opened the scoring with a bounce near the Bomber net, with Kenny Marquart making the big save to keep the game level. Moments later, Ryder Ringor got the party started, being in the right place at the right time to gather a rebound and smash it home. Flin Flon would not relinquish that lead.
The game had a playoff atmosphere, with the whistles being stashed away, Flin Flon wanting to ramp up the pace to prepare for the first round and the Ice Wolves doing their best to battle back into the playoff hunt. Senft got on the board with only five seconds left in the first, jumping on a shot off the post by Kyle Marsden and knocking it home past Graham Brown. Flin Flon led 2-0 entering the second.
La Ronge narrowed the lead to one late in the second, with Hudson Cameron catching the Bomber defence gassed after a long shift, breaking in alone and going five-hole on Marquart. The Bombers kept pushing the pace and keeping possession through the end up the second, still up 2-1.
Flin Flon took off with the game in the final frame. La Ronge's attempts were knocked away by both Marquart and Bomber defenders, who stepped up to block several chances.
Senft extended the lead after an odd-man-rush into the La Ronge zone - Carter Cormier came in with Ryder Ringor and couldn't finish, but the puck poked back out to Senft who finished it off. La Ronge's bench initially cried foul, saying Cormier was off-side on the zone entry, but the replay saw him stay onside by just a skate blade.
Marquart made a huge blind glove save on La Ronge's David Vitt, keeping that lead intact. Senft would then extend it moments later, burying a wrister, securing the hat-trick and all but knocking the Ice Wolves out of the playoffs with nine minutes to go.
Tempers boiled over late, with La Ronge's Rylan Silzer taking the game's first penalty by boarding Wyatt Stinton with eight minutes left. Stinton was unhurt and the Bombers didn't convert with the man up, but then killed off an even-up penalty on Rhett Ewen in the final minutes. La Ronge threw everything but the kitchen sink at Marquart late, but he held tall. Ewen and Landon Alexander made bids for the empty net once Brown was pulled, but it wouldn't matter - Flin Flon would close it out and La Ronge would head home heartbroken.
Marquart had one of his best starts of the season, getting the win by stopping 31 of 32 La Ronge shots. Brown did his best but couldn't do it himself, making 35 saves.
With the win, the Bombers knock the Ice Wolves out of the playoffs, sticking them two points out of the eighth and final playoff spot. That spot will now be occupied by the Kindersley Klippers, who clinched even despite losing 6-0 to Battlefords Saturday night. The Bombers' win also means the Ice Wolves' nearly 30-year run at the Mel Hegland Uniplex is officially over - the team will be moving down a few clicks down Saskatchewan Highway 2 to the Jonas Roberts Memorial Community Centre in Air Ronge for next season.
The loss signaled the end of the junior careers for seven Ice Wolves players - forwards Brett Boucher, Hudson Cameron, Jacob Cossette, Alex Mack and Cole Thomas, defender Rylan Silzer and goalie Logan Falk. In a cruel twist of fate for the Ice Wolves, forward Mason Bueckert, who they dealt to Kindersley at the Jan. 10 trade deadline, will continue to the playoffs by pipping his former team to the last spot.
That Klippers/Stars result did have an impact on the Bombers, as the two points received by the Stars pushed them up into sixth in the league standings. That means the Bombers will play the Humboldt Broncos in round one, who finished seventh, just one point back of the Stars. Humboldt finished their season with a 28-22-3-3 record, including four games against the Bombers where Flin Flon won three times.
Only one game remains in the SJHL standings and it won't have any playoff implications - Melfort will play Notre Dame Sunday night in a first-versus-last matchup. Both teams' spots in the standings have been confirmed weeks ago, with the Hounds, now headed to Warman for next season, playing the final game in their franchise's near-40-year history.
The Bombers will finish the 2024-25 season with a 38-13-4-1 record and 81 total points. With the exception of last year's historic season, this finish is the Bombers' best rank points-wise since 2016-17, where the Bombers had 39 wins and 83 points while playing two more games.
The playoffs will officially begin with Game 1 in Flin Flon next Friday night, with the Bombers and Broncos battling it out for the fourth time in the past five playoffs.
