Mudbugs claim second straight HTJHL title

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This article was published 25/03/2019 (1857 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Red River Mudbugs won their second straight Hanover Tache Junior Hockey League championship Monday night at St. Jean with a 3-1 victory over the Springfield Xtreme.

Red River won the best of seven championship series 4-1.

Scoreless after the first, Troy Lehmann staked the Mudbugs to a 1-0 lead midway through the second and then it was Skylar Klassen that put the game away for the defending champs scoring a pair of third period goals. Parker Perchuk added a late goal for the Xtreme to make it a 3-1 final.

All three Red River goals were scored on the powerplay.

Chris Friesen stopped 26 of the 27 shots he faced in net for the Mudbugs while Quinn Walterson was also outstanding in a lose cause for the Xtreme making 43 saves.

The Mudbugs were a dominant team in the HTJHL this season posting a 21-2-0-1 record and over the last two seasons are 40-7-1-1 in the regular season. Last year the Mudbugs lost only one playoff game, sweeping the St. Adolphe Hawks four straight in the finals. This year the Mudbugs sidelined the Steinbach Huskies 4-1 in the semis to advance to the championship series.

With his two-goal performance in last night’s game, Skylar Klassen was also leading scorer in the post-season with 21 points in 10 games, including nine goals.