What a night for Erik Gardiner as the 17 year-old continues to dazzle in his young junior hockey career.

The hometown Humboldt born forward scored late in the first, early in the second and then 54 seconds into overtime to lead the visiting Broncos over the Notre Dame Hounds 6-5 in Wilcox Tuesday night.

"Yeah it was really good," he said after the game which featured his 7th, 8th and 9th goals of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League season. "We battled a lot, the refs weren't always on our side but we played well and it was nice to get the hat trick in overtime."

Trevor Posch opened the scoring in the latter half of the first from Michael Korol and Chris Van Os-Shaw as all three linemates crashed Jordan Greenfield-Flemon's crease somehow jamming the puck in.

Gardiner made it 2-0 with just over two minutes to play wrapping around a Josh Roberts rebound. Van Os-Shaw would then snap his 12th of the campaign past Greenfield-Flemon making it 3-0 before the first was out. Korol picked up the lone assist as he forced Tyler Podgorenko to cough the puck up to Van Os-Shaw in the slot.

The second period turned into a discipline debacle for the green and gold, the Broncos would take eight penalties in the middle frame, Notre Dame would make them pay, Adam Dawe fired his eighth past Carter Seminuk to make it 3-1.

Gardiner answered at 6:17 off a slick pass from Matthieu Gomercic restoring the three goal cushion.

The infractions kept coming and so did Notre Dame's goals, Podgorenko rifled a pair of power-play markers past Seminuk, Conor MacLean potted his second as the Hounds eventually tied it 4-4 inside the first minute of the third. Two of the goals came during full two minute five-on-three chances.

Overall the power-plays were 9-2 in favour of the Hounds. 

The Broncos did use their lone third period chance to move ahead again, Dawson Atamanchuk buried his second on a rebound in front of Riley Higdon who came on in relief in the second period. Stephan Wack collected one of his three assists, Posch had the other.

The lead didn't last long, just 36 seconds later Chance Longjohn tied it at 5-5 to force the fourth period.

Gardiner ended it before the Broncos had to defend in overtime.

"It was a tough period for us but I thought we battled hard," Gardiner said of the penalties.

He doesn't kill many penalties but he felt that played out in their favour in the end.

"We just try to stay up on the bench, encourage our teammates and then once the third hit I thought we played pretty well and had fresh legs, it was good."

Daniel McKitrick set Gardiner up from behind the net on the winning tally.

"It's tough winning in Notre Dame I think, I haven't won many games there myself," Gardiner continued. "It was cool but we've got to look forward to the weekend, we've got some tough teams in some tough arenas play in, if we could keep this train rolling it would be good."

Overall the special teams finished with Humboldt 1/2, the Hounds concluded 4/9.

Seminuk started the game for the Broncos, he was pulled after allowing 5 on 32 shots, the last at 9:44 of the third period. Garrett Mason turned aside all six he faced picking up the win. Greenfield-Flemon was 15/18 in the first, Higdon was 16/19 taking the loss. 

The Broncos will now head to Melville Friday, then they make their second visit to the Northern Lights Palace in Melfort on Saturday. As usual, the games will be on 107.5 Bolt FM starting at 7:15 with the pre-game show. Face-off is 7:30.

Elsewhere in the SJHL Tuesday night the Battlefords pounded Kindersley 8-2, Melfort fell 5-4 to the Weyburn Red Wings and Estevan outscored Yorkton 6-5 also in overtime.

You can hear more from Gardiner and Assistant Coach Brayden Klimosko's post game comments below. Also, Josh Roberts was the first intermission guest on the broadcast.