Playoffs start tonight on three fronts | NSJHL

Playoffs start tonight on three fronts

Posted on February 20, 2026 (Updated March 2, 2026)

By Dan Boyd

The road to the Veterans Cup, symbolic of Nova Scotia Junior Hockey League Supremacy begins tonight as three rounds of the opening Best-of-Five Preliminary Playoffs get underway. Let’s take a look at each individual series. As anyone can tell you, it is hockey playoffs so anything can happen!!

Brookfield at East Hants

When you first look at this series, one might think the Penguins are more than likely to dominate. However you can’t forget the Elks are playing their best hockey of the season, coming off two wins over the Sackville Blazers and an overtime loss to the South Shore Lumberjacks in their final three games. No question the Elks have had some rough times this season but their play of late has been impressive.

The Elks will require their top offensive guns Cale MacLellan, Bryson Currie, Brady Croft and Owen Cleary to all step forward in huge ways to play against a talented East Hants squad who finished in third place in the Fox Division but only six points out of first with a 20-8-2 record. If it were not for a sluggish seven game stretch in mid-season, the Pens might have been able to do even more. The Elks have two solid defensemen, who do not do anything magical on offence in Jaden Duncan and Josh Morrison but are more than steady in playing defense. In nets the Elks have Loghan Wallace, a goaltender they picked up from Sackville in an early season trade and Cole Echlin. They both faced numerous shots in respective games in which they played but turned in many steady performances despite their season records. The Penguins won all five games of the season series including a 2-0 win against the 5-23-2 Elks.

The Penguins have an offense that will scare anyteam. Their top three scorers were Chris Caissie who recorded a 25 goal season while also collecting 25 assists. Jacob Sanford scored nine times while also adding 25 assists and Aiden Nicholson netted 15 goals and recorded 19 assists. Noah Comeau played effective offense on defense scoring valuable points while Jake O’Connor and Bryce Stewart were steady defensive defensemen for the Pens. In nets, East Hants struggled at times as Fintan Boudreau finished with a 9-7-0 record and a .907 save percentage.

The Opening three games are set:

Brookfield at East Hants 7:30 Friday, Feb 20th/26

East Hants at Brookfield 7:00 p.m. Saturday, Feb 21st/26

Brookfield at East Hants 7:30 Monday, Feb 23rd/26.

Sackville at Windsor

Based on their season series, this should be a humdinger of a playoff round. The Oxen in five games went 4-1-0 against the Blazers while Sackville finished 1-2-2. Two of the five contests went into overtime this season while the 13-14-3 Oxen outscored the 10-17-3 Blazers 25-19.

In one game on January 16th in Windsor, the Oxen struck for 2 goals in the game’s final 44 seconds to tie the game at 5-5, then won it in a shoot-out after having a goal in sudden-death overtime disallowed.

The Oxen have plenty of offence and Cam Walsh mixes in playing a solid offensive-defensive role. Nicholas Video plays exceptionally strong in a defensive role for the Oxen.

Xavier Rivard and Adam Maillet will be asked to continue to play their magical offense for the Blazers, both had 25 point seasons while Connor Foston, Brody Fitzpatrick and Matt Pluscauskas will be asked to carry as they have to the best of their ability, the Blazers defense. The following is the opening round of this playoff schedule:

Friday, Feb 20 - Sackville at Windsor 7:30 p.m.

Saturday Feb 21st — Windsor at Sackville 7:00 p.m.

Sunday Feb 22nd — Sackville at Windsor 7:30 p.m.

Monday Feb 23rd/26 - Windsor at Sackville 7:30 p.m. x (if nec)

Wednesday Feb 25th - Sackville at Windsor 7:30 p.m. x (if nec)

Jr. Miners at Strait

This Best of Five is another toss-up with the Pirates winning four of five regular season games including one in overtime 7-6. Port Hawkesbury was 4-1-0 versus the Jr. Miners while the Jr. Miners were 1-3-1 against the Strait who outscored the Jr. Miners 24-23 in their five regular season games. The opening two games in this series are:

Friday, Feb 20/26 - Jr. Miners at Port Hawkesbury 7:30

Saturday Feb 21st — Port Hawkesbury at Jr. Miners 7:30 p.m.

Playoffs start tonight on three fronts

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