Defenseman Caleb Suderman scored a pair of goals to go along with a pair of assists, while fellow Winkler native Jordan Peters also scored twice as the fourth place Flyers kicked off their Addison Division Semi-Final series with a 7-4 win over the first place Steelers in Selkirk.

Tonight the regular season standings went out the window as the MJHL post-season began on three fronts, including in Selkirk where the Steelers hosted the Flyers in Game 1 of their Addison Division Semi-Final series.

Early on specialty teams were at the forefront, as the Steelers took a pair of penalties to give the Orange and Black a 5-on-3 advantage.

While the defending Turnbull Cup Champions were able to kill off the initial penalty to Derek Gagnon, the Flyers found the back of the net with Chris Tyslau still in the box when Stefan Schneider circled behind Selkirk the goal, faked the pass to the blueline, then turned and fired a shot that hit Michael Falk and deflected past goaltender Alan Armour. However, their celebration was cut short as referee Darren Damsgaard waved off the goal, claiming that the puck was kicked in.

Too make matters worse, not long after that, the Steelers found themselves on the power-play and they capitialized as Adam Pleskach beat Dayn Belfour at 8:29 to officially open the scoring.

However, that series of events didn't seem to slow down the Flyers, who picked up momentum as the period wore on, and just 31 seconds after Pleskach's goal, Suderman responded with a point shot through traffic that eluded Armour to even the score.

Suderman then played an integral part in the Flyers second goal at 16:42, as his wrist shot from the blueline on the power-play was defected past Armour by Peters to give Winkler a 2-1 lead, which is where things stood through 20 minutes of play.

Like the first, specialty teams continued to be key in the second period and that's a battle the Flyers won.

After killing off penalties to David Kurbatsky and then Schneider, the Orange and Black went back to the power-play when Andrew Rewucki was whistled for roughing and once again they were able to turn a point shot and a good net presence into a goal. This time it was Morgan Bell, who was a dominant physical force all night long, providing the shot from the backend and, while Harry Mahesh provided the screen in front of Armour, Schneider came in and cleaned up the loose puck to make it 3-1 at 10:43.

Mahesh then made it 4-1 with a similiar goal on the power-play 3:21 later, with Suderman and Alex North drawing the assists.

However, before the period drew to a close Pleskach cut the deficit to two with his second power-play marker of the night.

Early in the third it looked like the Flyers were going to be content sitting on their two goal cushion, but they soon went back on the attack and added two more goals to their lead.

At 5:15 Peters collected his second power-play goal when he beat his check to the net and converted a perfect back door pass from Nick Lazorko, who also had a hand in Peters' first of the contest.

Then at 13:08 Tyler Bram cleanly won an offensive zone face-off back to Suderman at the blueline and the Flyers' rookie defenseman quickly got a shot off that got through Armour for a 6-2 lead.

While the Steelers trailed by four goals at that point it was clear that they weren't going to away quietly and thanks to a pair of power-play goals from Russ Payne and Colan Jackson 33 seconds apart with just under five minutes remaining, things got a little more interesting than the Flyers would have liked.

But with Armour on the bench in favour of an extra attacker in the final minute, Jared McIntosh sealed the victory with an empty net breakaway goal.

With Game 1 in the books, the series now shifts to Winkler for what should be a very entertaining Game 2 on Sunday night at 7:30. Once again, if you are unable to make your way to the Winkler Recreation Complex be sure to tune in to Country 1570 CKMW starting with the pre-game show at 7:25.

Game Stats