An 8:00 pm puck drop against the Saskatoon Westleys tonight will provide the next chance for the Delisle Chiefs to extend their winning streak. The team is 7-7-2, and are in second last in the Bob Dybvig Division standings.
Head Coach and GM Eric Ditto has been impressed with their season turnaround.
“We talked as a group, and in our last 11 games we are 7-3-1. Looking at our record, starting 0-4-1, coming back to where we are at 7-3-1 sounds pretty good.”
Ditto wants his team eager at the chance to beat the leagues better teams, and that will again be the case again tonight at home. The win streak currently sits at 3, and a win against the Westleys would set a new record of 4 on the season.
“With the Westleys, that’s a team we are chasing and they have a very impressive record,” shared Ditto, with an interesting note, “Out of their three losses, we’ve handed them two. We like the match-up, and they are a good team and there’s a reason they only have three losses, but I like how we stack up against them.”
They should come into the game confident after the pair of wins last week, and an 8-2 drubbing of the Richardson Pioneer Southern Rebels on Saturday.
Delisle was up 4-0 headed into the 3rd, and then scored 4 more to walk away with the 8-2 victory. Noah Martens was in net and stopped 26/28 shots, to move his SV% on the season to .911. It was a very balanced performance offensively as no player had more than 3 points, with that player being captain Chad Westman who 3 helpers. Adam Bradley had a goal and an assist, Easton Ediger added 2 more goals to his total, and Kyle Heintz also had 3 points with a goal and 2 assists.
The Chiefs are working to rebound from a slow start to their season, but they should be happy with the fact that they have as many as 5 games in hand on some teams. That excuse won’t fly headed into tonight’s match-up however, as the 11-3-1 Westleys have less games played than the Chiefs, and a far more impressive showing for it.
“Things are turning around, heading in the right direction, and like I said we just gotta start beating some of these top teams now,” said the coach, with a follow up, “If we do lose, don’t turn it into a streak like we have the last couple. Seems when we lose one we lose a couple and then it takes a while to turn things around. Just have to take it one game at a time, and stay off the losing skid.”
After the home game tonight, Delisle will be back on the road this weekend to take on the Carrot River Outback Thunder, a team they just recently lost back-to-back games to in November.
Sat, Apr 20, 8:30 AM
