The Broncos hoped to rebound from a 5-1 loss earlier this week on the road in Melfort Friday night versus the reigning Canalta Cup champions.

The compete and effort level was distinctively better, the outcome on the scoreboard was not as the Mustangs overwhelmed Humboldt 4-1 at the Northern Lights Palace to draw first blood in the rivals' season series.

The Broncos were looking for a better start on this night and they got that generating a couple early chances but not getting one by Richard Palmer.

As luck would have it, the 9-1-1 Mustangs would get the game's first break, Braxx George slapped a shot from the left point which was heading way wide before it careened off the leg of Greg Moro beating Brett Friesen making it 1-0 in the opening period for the home side.

In the middle period, last year's player of the year Travis Mayan went to work, the 20 year-old scored his 12th of the season on the power-play beating Friesen in the top left corner, Mayan then set up Eric Sinclair for his second of the season which made it 3-0 after 40 minutes.

The Broncos would get on the board just past the eight minute mark of the third, Anthony Kapelke jumped on a loose puck during a scramble in front of Palmer for his second goal of the campaign. Kyle Craddock and Daniel Mckitrick were credited with the assists.

The Broncos couldn't get any closer and Mayan capped a four point night with an empty net tally with six seconds left.

"Really the game could have went really downhill from there and it didn't," Assistant Coach Brayden Klimosko said on the post-game show when referring to the first goal of the night. "They are a good hockey team and we stuck with them for the most part. We made obviously a lot of mistakes still, don't get me wrong it wasn't a perfect effort by no means but at least with the effort now we can concentrate on other things."

Friesen battled hard in the Broncos' net making nearly a dozen strong saves holding Humboldt in the game, he stopped 35/38 shots in his sixth loss. Palmer was only tested 15 times, that's the second straight game the Broncos have only mustered that many chances.

"There was a couple chances in the second period, we probably had three two-on-ones that we had a chance to score a goal and we didn't even get really a shot," Klimosko added. "That's the difference between us and Melfort right now, they get a two-on-one they are going to bury it or if not they are going to get a good chance, you are going to have to take a penalty, you are going to have to do something. We've to get to that point."

The Broncos were 0/3 with the power-play, two of the three times they had the man advantage they took a penalty of their own to erase it. Melfort also did that during a man advantage of their own, they did score once in six tries, Sinclair's goal came while short handed.

Humboldt gets set to face the Flin Flon Bombers on Tuesday at the Elgar Petersen Arena for another Toonie Tuesday game where everyone 18 and under gets in for $2.

You can hear more Klimosko's complete post-game comments below.

Elsewhere Friday night in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League; the Kindersley Klippers doubled Notre Dame 6-3, Weyburn blanked Flin Flon 2-0, the LaRonge Ice Wolves defeated Melville 3-1 and the Battlefords Stars downed Nipawin 4-2.