Benny Walchuk:
Doug, coming off a big win last night on home ice against the La Ronge Ice Wolves, but let’s go back to the weekend road trip that started in Flin Flon. What did you like from those games overall?
Doug Johnson:
I really liked our resiliency on Saturday. Friday, to be honest, was a bit of a write-off. We got better as the game went on, but we weren’t good off the start and never really gave ourselves a chance.
On Saturday, we made some mistakes early and turned pucks over that ended up in our net, but we battled back. In the third period, if you look at the shots and the overall play, it might have been our best period of the year. We were very dominant. Other than maybe a bit of a scorekeeper’s malfunction in overtime, we probably deserved the two points. Still, coming away with one point in that building is tough to do. Now we just have to keep things rolling.
Benny Walchuk:
You mentioned getting a point in Flin Flon, and then you followed it up with a win last night over La Ronge. I know you probably weren’t thrilled with the full 60-minute effort, but at the end of the day, you get the two points.
Doug Johnson:
That’s right. The message going in was to make sure we made ourselves better, and I’m not sure we fully did that. There were definitely positives. Margolis scored a couple and had a really strong game. I thought Harkness was dominant as well. Our older guys and our best players were our best players, and that’s what they needed to be. Some of the other details slipped a little bit, and that’s something we’ll address. We’ve played a lot of hockey and done a lot of traveling lately. Maybe we looked past La Ronge a bit, but it was good to see our leaders step up and do the job.
Benny Walchuk:
With some different personnel in the lineup, you paired Boston Harkness and Wesley Golden together on the back end — kind of like the twin towers. Was that by design, and how did you think they complemented each other?
Doug Johnson:
Harky can play offside really well. For his first two years with me, he played on that side. With Hicks a little banged up and dealing with a few things, and with four right-shot defencemen in the lineup, someone has to play their offside. That’s Harky.
When you put Harky and Goldie together, they’re a duo that can really calm things down. It also allows us to keep our other pairings intact. Greggs has been playing well with Shaq, and Schmalz and Nabs have been together almost since day one. We didn’t want to disrupt that chemistry. But Harky and Goldie are a nice pairing to have — if things aren’t going your way, you can put them out there and they tend to settle things down pretty quickly.
Benny Walchuk:
Two more games are coming up this weekend. I know the focus is pretty simple — take care of your own game and collect the points you need.
Doug Johnson:
Exactly. Against La Ronge, we need to show up and play a full 60 minutes and not give up easy goals. Then against Estevan, it’s about slowing them down. We have to turn it into trench warfare instead of a run-and-gun game.
If we can slow things down, pressure their defence, create turnovers, and make sure their top line has no time or space, we’ll give ourselves a good chance to be successful. But first, we have to get the two points on Friday and not look past that game before we shift our focus to Estevan.
