It's hard to imagine a statistically closer season series than the one the Estevan Bruins and Battlefords North Stars played this past year.

The two teams played six times, splitting the games right down the middle with each team winning and losing three with one loss in extra time. The two teams scored 24 goals each. Even the shots were absurdly tight with Battlefords beating out Estevan in that department 185-176 for an average differance of fewer than two shots per game. 

In other words, neither team enters play on Friday, March 30 expecting an easy series. And with five of the SJHL's six 30-goal scorers in this series, goals may be the order of the day.

"We've seen a lot of goals for and against with the Stars over the last couple of years," said Bruins head coach and GM Chris Lewgood. "There's lots of factors in that and one of them is the skill. It will be a little tighter come playoff time as you typically see but with the amount of offense available to both teams I think we'll see some scoring."

For a Bruins team that bowed out to Battlefords in four games last season, this is a chance at revenge for last year's semi-final defeat. The team downplays that notion, however. 

"I don't think they've been looking forward too much. There's twelve good teams in this league and the guys have been focussed on Kindersley. Now that we know who were playing the guys are pretty excited about the Stars."

"It's different than last year because we didn't know what to expect," said Bruins forward Zach Goberis. "This year, looking at the season series we were very even so we have a lot of confidence after a good series against Kindersley." 

BO DIDUR AND ZACH GOBERIS ON ROCK 106:  

In the most recent contest between the two teams, a badly-undermanned Bruins team missing Johnny Witzke, Arthur Miller, Jake Fletcher, and Matthew Chekay hung tight to beat the North Stars 4-3 despite being horrendously outshot. TJ Irey scored twice, while Bo Didur was a huge part of the win, making 46 saves.

"Since I've been here we've found some success against them in the three games," Didur said. "We got five out of six points. Everybody's excited to get things going."

In four game against Kindersley, Didur surrendered just five goals and put up a .953 save percentage, though he was quick to credit his teammates.

"My team helped me out a lot when it came to making the right saves and the timely saves," he said. "Every time I would make a save those guys were there to either clear the rebound or clear guys out from in front of the net so they made my job easy and it gave me confidence to play my game."

Didur will be one of the keys to the series as he'll be an important part of a group tasked with keeping the dynamic Layne Young off the scoresheet. Limiting him may be a more reasonable goal than stopping him outright, as Young put up 107 points in the regular season.

Young's point totals were the highest in the SJHL since Kevin Doell put up 141 almost twenty years ago in 1998-99, at a time when the league still had 14 teams. Goberis has played against Young for three years now, and he had some thoughts on holding off his offensive attack.

"Make sure he doesn't have the puck," Goberis said matter-of-factly. "Every time he has the puck he's a huge threat out there. I'm assuming Tesarowski and Heerspink will be playing against him the most. That's the matchup we want."

By no means does the North Stars offense live and die totally by Young, however. Rookie forward Matthias Urbanski potted 20 goals on the year.

They also got 33 goals from MacGregor Sinclair, and would certainly have gotten 30 or more from Cole Johnson had he played a full year there. The Marwayne, Alberta native came over near the trade deadline from the AJHL's Lloydminster Bobcats and put up an eye-popping 16 goals and 35 points in 23 games. 

It was the Bruins who led the league in scoring, however, with Goberis, Kaelan Holt and Michael McChesney all scoring 30 goals and Miller comfortably on pace for it despite joining the team-mid season and playing just 40 games. Miller, Fletcher, and Hayden Guilderson all surpassed the 20 goal mark. 

So the two deadliest offenses in the SJHL and the last unbeaten teams in the playoffs will go head-to-head as two squads that genuinely dislike each other will meet in round two for the second straight year. Catch all the action on Rock 106, beginning on Friday, March 30 at 7:30 SK time.