The Portage Terriers are back on the ice tonight in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League. They're on the road taking on the Neepawa Natives. The Terriers are fresh off a strong performance against the Steinbach Pistons Wednesday night where they came from behind a couple of times to finally win the game 6-5. Neepawa on the other hand is looking to get back in the win column as they are currently mired in a six-game losing skid.

Terriers forward Joey Moffat had a pair of goals in the game against Steinbach and he says they just need to be ready to go at puck drop against Neepawa.

"Obviously, we're going to have to have an early start," says Moffat. "Today we didn't have that start. We're going into their barn so we need to get on them early, I think that's going to be a big part."

Fellow Terrier Ocean Wiesblatt also had a pair of goals and a four-point night on Wednesday. He adds they need to stick to their gameplan and the game should go their way.

"We just have to play our game, just like any other team," says Wiesblatt. "They've got some fiesty players over there so we have to be smart and stick to what we've been doing."

Tale of the Tape

Record
Portage Terriers 14-4-1
Neepawa Natives 4-10-1-2

Special Teams
The Terriers first-place powerplay continues to shine. They notched a pair on the man advantage Wednesday night to keep their high success rating of 27.8%. The penalty kill on the other hand, statistically hasn't seen much progress as the Dogs stil sit in ninth-place with a kill rating of only 78.6%. It bodes well for Portage that the Natives are one of the two teams with a penalty kill that's worse off. Neepawa has the worst penalty kill in the league at 67.1%. Their powerplay isn't much better, being ranked tenth in the league with a 14.8% conversion rate.

Team Leaders
Terriers - Reilly Funk 11G, 14A, 25Pts. ; Ocean Wiesblatt 60 PIMs
Natives - Mackenzie Belinski 10G, 13A, 23Pts. ; Scott Mickoski 62 PIMs

Goaltenders
Terriers - Ethan Peterson .876 save percentage and a 3.24 GAA
Natives - Nik Anderson .877 save percentage and a 4.73 GAA

The Terriers have a great chance to keep putting distance between themselves and the rest of the league. Neepawa is struggling right now and the Dogs have to take advantage, beating the lower ranked teams when they come up against them. Hopefully Wednesday was a breakout game for Wiesblatt as he has been buzzing around the net all season but without much to show for it on the scoreboard. If Portage can take advantage of the Natives being on a skid then there should be no issue coming out with a victory. Puck drop is set for 7:30 pm in Neepawa.