Turner finds success in Melfort

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This article was published 07/05/2025 (225 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Zach Turner began the 2024-25 season, he imagined finishing his Western Hockey League career with the Swift Current Broncos.

Instead, he was waived by the Bronocs and won a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League title with the Melfort Mustangs. They begin play at the Centennial Cup in Calgary on Thursday.

“It couldn’t be any better,” Turner said. “With my last year of junior hockey, I’ve always said to my parents that I want to win something and coming to Melfort with the opportunity I had and the people I met, my billets, the teammates I have, my coaches, it couldn’t get any better than that.

“And then finishing it off by winning and still going into the Centennial Cup is a surreal moment.”

Turner was originally drafted by the Brandon Wheat Kings with the 39th overall pick in 2019 after they had already selected Nate Danielson fifth, Tyson Zimmer sixth and Rylen Roersma 16th.

After three seasons of being in and out of the lineup on the Brandon blue-line, Turner was injured in camp and finally fell out of the team’s plans for good.

Then 19, Turner was traded by the Wheat Kings to the Swift Current Broncos on Sept. 27, 2023 for a sixth-round pick in 2024 that Brandon used to pick Saskatoon forward Hudson Postnikoff.

After playing a career-high 44 games with Swift Current last season, the six-foot-two, 192-pound blue-liner ran into an overage logjam and was cut loose on Sept. 25, and within a couple of days landed in Melfort.

The team had already reached out, but his buddy Nolan Roberts was also in his ear about joining him on the Mustangs blue-line.

“I was on Melfort’s radar probably from summer time, maybe the end of the season,” Turner said. “It was just a what-if if I didn’t stick in the Western League. Definitely I had Nolan texting me and reaching out to me saying they were really interested. It was just a spot going somewhere to Junior A and having a buddy there and people there I know and knowing their history. It was a team that was an easy choice for me.”

Roberts said he spoke to Zach Turner a lot throughout the summer. Their farms are about 25 minutes apart, so Roberts kept in his ear about potentially joining him.

“We skate a lot in the summer and hang out a decent amount as country guys,” Roberts said. “It was awesome having Turns. He played a huge role.”

That certainly helped as he was choosing his next place to play.

“I would say we were pretty close,” Turner said. “Growing up, we played against each other playing minor hockey with him being from Souris and me being from Boissevain, and then we played spring hockey together growing up. Once we hit the AAA age, he went to Brandon and I stayed with Southwest. We played against each other all our lives so to be on the same team was pretty cool.”

Turner also knew guys through U15 and U18 hockey in Manitoba, including Ashton Paul of The Pas, who played with the Norman Northstars, Logan Belton of the U15 Winnipeg Monarchs, and Bo Eisner and Will Munro of Swan River, who both skated with the Parkland Rangers.

While Turner was a major junior player suddenly skating for a Junior A club, he tuned out the expectations.

“For me, the pressure wasn’t as much as some people might think,” Turner said. “I just thought I had to play my game, play Zach Turner hockey, and I think did exceptionally well. To me the pressure was up there with how people would think of me but I just played my game and did my thing.”

Turner’s numbers proved to be a revelation. He had seven goals, 23 assists and 104 penalty minutes in 46 games, eclipsing the stats he put up in 111 regular season WHL games over essentially three seasons.

“I would be happy with that, especially with a championship ring coming my way too,” Turner said with a chuckle about his numbers.

Turner, whose defensive partner was 19-year-old Cole Unger of Medicine Hat, Alta., suddenly had a lot asked of him every night. But he was certainly happy with the responsibility.

“I played a very defensive game,” Turner said. “That’s how I played in the Western League. But coming in with an opportunity on the second power-play unit and being able to play the game I played back in midget and bantam, I got that offensive role.

“Also I had that role of being one of those guys who could protect my teammates out on the ice. I had three different roles out there and it definitely brought out my hockey skills.”

The Mustangs dominated in the regular season, going 46-8-0-2 and finishing 13 points ahead of the Flin Flon Bombers in the race for the SJHL’s regular season title. They outscored their opponents 221 to 123, which were both league bests, and entered the playoffs on a 7-1-0-2 streak.

“We just stuck to the same roles we needed to stick to,” Turner said of his team. “We came to the rink prepared every single day, in practice we prepared and when it came game time, we just naturally knew we would play the same way we always had because that’s how we succeeded in the regular season and that’s how we were going to succeed in the playoffs.”

In their three best-of-seven series in the post-season, the Mustangs topped the Kindersley Clippers in five games, swept the Yorkton Terriers and then beat the Red Wings in five games.

They were especially strong defensively in the final, holding Weyburn to just three goals in five games after they scored 35 in their two previous series. In fact, the Mustangs had three shutouts in the final four games of the series after the Red Wings finished second in the regular season with 218 goals.

“It definitely showed the strength of the defensive corps that we had,” Turner said. “Our goalie (Kristian) Coombs stepped up and made some huge saves for us but as a big, veteran D corps, we tried to shut them down and give them nothing.”

Another highlight was a goal he scored in Game 5 that proved to be the series and championship winner. Melfort was on the power play midway through the second period when Ashton Paul received the puck from Nicholas Andrusiak and fed Turner for his second goal of the playoffs.

“It was surreal,” Turner said. “It was on the power play, a backdoor one-timer. Nothing’s better than that.”

In 13 playoff games, he had two goals, three assists and 14 penalty minutes.

Turner’s last championship came when the Cougars won the rural U15 provincials in 2017-18, but they were subsequently beaten by Winnipeg in the provincial final. This one proved to be pretty nice, even if it was the second title in a row for 10 of the returning Mustangs.

“It was awesome,” Turner said. “It was something we were looking forward to all year. It was a group that deserved that moment, that’s for sure.”

Now another challenge awaits at the Centennial Cup in Calgary.

Melfort, which lost in the final of the national Junior A championship a year ago, opens against the Calgary Canucks on Thursday, and then plays the Edmundston Blizzard on Saturday, the Rockland Nationals on Tuesday and the Braves de Valleyfield on Wednesday.

The semifinals are on Friday, May 16, and the final on Saturday, May 17.

“I’m super pumped,” Turner said. “I’m super excited to see all the teams around the country and what our team can do against them.”

Turner, who has a number of options in U Sports for next season but is putting off his final decision until after the tournament ends, said his club is going into the event with high expectations.

“You have to,” Turner said. “You can’t go in wondering where you’re going to be. You have to go in with confidence I think. If we go in with confidence and play our game, I think that’s how we’re going to succeed.”

» Later this week in The Brandon Sun, Northern Manitoba Blizzard players Loughlan McMullan and Max Collyer will be profiled.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com