Bruins vs. Hawks preview

Three players will be facing the team they were recently traded away from tonight. For Ryan Ostertag, who was traded to Nipawin on Thursday, it will be particularly strange as he's making his Hawks debut at Spectra Place. Former Bruin Jesse Bernard and current Bruin Tyler Paslawski, who were traded for each other, are also playing their old teammates for the first time. Former Hawk Tyler Poskus is out with a concussion.

On the injury front, the Bruins will get Matt Brykaliuk back, but that's it. There was a chance of Connor Milligan returning, but he had a bit of a headache after practice yesterday so he's being held out.

Rather than move someone like Brykaliuk or Dylan Schellenberg to the blueline, the Bruins have called up two defencemen from the Assiniboia Rebels of the PJHL. They are 1991 Ryan Curzon, an Estevan native, and 1993 Scott Morrison.

Estevan Bruins (16-14-0-1, 3rd in Sherwood)

The Bruins are in a freefall, having lost six games in a row, including three straight on the road this week. That slump has coincided with hot play from the Weyburn Red Wings and Yorkton Terriers, meaning the Bruins are 10 points out of first place and only two up on Yorkton, with the Dogs having four games in hand. This is one of only two home games in December for the Bruins, so it's crucial that they take advantage of it against a Nipawin team that is also slumping.

The injuries to Jelinski, Milligan, Baldwin and Poskus, along with the trades on Thursday, have depleted a lot of the Bruins' depth. They need some of their younger kids to take advantage of the extra ice time and show what they can do. Up front, the Neufeld-Whitehill-Paslawski line has played a few games together now and a breakout game from them would be huge. On the back end, Perrault, Kauk, Yano and Bosch will be leaned on heavily to hold off the speedy Hawks.

Nipawin Hawks (14-12-2, 5th in Bauer)

After a surprising red-hot start to the year, the Hawks have staggered to fifth in the Bauer Conference with a 2-7-1 record in their last 10 games. They have tinkered with their roster quite a bit in the hopes of getting back into the top three in the Bauer. 

Rookie Tad Kozun and former Bruin Justin Waskewitch are leading the way on the scoresheet so far, but the Hawks have lots of secondary scoring from the likes of Brady Zerr, Eric Peterson, Adam Reichert and Stuart Holland. The Hawks also have a pretty solid, if young, defensive corps and Davis Jones has been a workhorse in goal since the trade of Stephen Klein. 

Jesse Bernard is still looking for his first point of the year and you know he'd love to snap out of it against the team that traded him.