Nighthawks fall to Terriers in opening round of MJHL playoffs

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This article was published 05/04/2023 (820 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Despite a first-round playoff exit, Kelvin Cech is still counting the Niverville Nighthawks inaugural season as a success.

The Nighthawks went toe to toe with the best team in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL), but the Portage Terriers were able to find another level, winning the series 4-1, despite Niverville scoring first in four of the five games.

“It was a real good taste of playoff hockey,” Cech said.

“We’re disappointed we didn’t go further, but at the same time we’re proud of the guys and how they competed.”

The tone of the series may have flipped if the Nighthawks could have won game one in Portage. They would lose the opener 5-4 in double-overtime.

“It would have been awesome to steal the first one,” Cech said.

“I think we really spooked (the Terriers) in game one, and they came out flying after that. We had to elevate our game to match that, and we couldn’t quite get to the level that we needed to.”

Niverville was able to win game three, but it was too little, too late, as the Nighthawks offense dried up, scoring only one goal in game four and game five, both multi-goal losses.

With offense at a premium, Niverville was lead by Josh Paulhus and Gavin Gunderson. The two forwards were the only Nighthawks to score multiple goals in the series. Gunderson missed a lot of this season with a broken hand, but the 2003-born player elevated for the playoffs.

Paulhus capped off a memorable final year of junior eligibility with a great performance of his own, leading Niverville in playoff scoring. The 2002-born forward joined the other graduating players for a send-off meeting after the season.

Cech said he had completed exit interviews with the players April 3.

“We want to win hockey games, and that’s what the fans are there for and I get that, but the point is for each one of these young men to develop on and off the ice, and they did” he said.

“I can sleep at night knowing they all improved in many different ways… By that metric, (the season) was definitely a success.”

The season wasn’t just a win on the ice for the hockey operations side. The club has signed their top three draft picks from the 2023 MJHL draft, a great sign for a team which entered the season having no draft picks on their active roster. Nathan Brown, Raiden Legall and Avery Laliberte could all see time in Nighthawks blue in the coming years.

Cech gave a long list of shout outs to his scouting staff for ensuring the team would select players interested in playing junior A hockey with Niverville.

“There’s strong programs at every level, and we strive to be one of those programs,” he said.

Cech said it was a challenge for the expansion organization to balance their desire to compete with the best teams in the league with building for the future.

“It was a thin line to walk, and I’m pretty happy with how we walked that,” he said.

“We have a lot of guys looking for extra responsibility and bigger roles for next year.”

The atmosphere in Niverville for hockey games had been excellent all season, but fans ramped it up for the playoffs, jamming into the arena to watch the Nighthawks try and pull out the upset.

“It was electric,” Cech said.

“We were so happy to bring playoff hockey to the citizens of Niverville and they were really fired up… It would have been nice to get a win (on home ice).”

There won’t be much time for the coaching staff to rest, as the Nighthawks have their spring camp scheduled for April 20-23.