Reid Dyck made 33 saves in his playoff debut to lead the Swift Current Broncos to a 3-0 win over the visiting Lethbridge Hurricanes on Friday.
“It was great,” said Dyck. “Coming out for the first period and seeing the flags fly and how loud it was in here I knew we had to feed off that all night. The boys did a great job in the first two periods, locked it down. Then in the third period they gave up a bit of chances, but they played great in front of me, so it was a great night.”
The Broncos now lead the best-of-seven playoff series 1-0. They opened the scoring 8:25 into the first period when Caleb Wyrostok scored on a wrist shot from the high slot. The Broncos doubled the lead late in the period with a Conor Geekie goal on a tip-in of a Mathew Ward centering feed. Clarke Caswell added a third-period goal to close the scoring.
Dyck preserved the shutout with a handful of desperation saves in the final five minutes.
“At that time I’m just trying to keep the puck out of the net any way I could. Some of them weren’t very pretty, some of them were a little scrambly, but the guys tied up sticks in front of me and did a great job. It was a lot of fun tonight,” said Dyck.
“Obviously he’s a real important player for us,” said Interim Head Coach Taras McEwen. “He came up real big tonight, especially in the third period with some of those saves. I thought just some puck management, we’re just out a little bit too quick and he was there to help us all night. He’s going to be a real important player, he’s been important all year, and we’ll definitely need him here throughout the playoffs.”
“Happy for the most part,” said McEwen of the overall effort. “I thought for 50 minutes it was probably as close to the game we wanted to play. I thought there was a stint there in the second period and obviously in the third period where we just had some breakdowns that we’ll look to clean up tomorrow. I’m happy for the most part with how we played.”
Game two will be Saturday in Swift Current.
“I thought we did a pretty good job with sticking to our game plan. I think there’s a couple small adjustments that we’ll make and we’ll continue to do that game by game, just small little tweaks to our D-zone, neutral zone, couple things. Happy for the most part and it’s a quick turnaround and get ready for tomorrow,” said McEwen.
