For the first time since 1979-80, the Humboldt Broncos are not going to the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League playoffs.

Their 3-2 loss Saturday night on home ice to the Melfort Mustangs was the final nail in a roller coaster regular season for the team and first year bench boss Darcy Haugan.

"Now that we're out of the playoffs mathematically we're just looking to get better everyday and build on something for next year," said captain Logan Schatz after the game. "That's our goal now and guys just got to come to the rink ready to play everyday."

It would have taken a miracle for the green and gold to get to the post-season even prior to back to back losses against the Mustangs on the weekend but the club and their young roster proved against the reigning champs and likely three-time Sher-wood division pennant winners that they weren't going to quit. They pushed Melfort to the brink, and perhaps fitting it was a Travis Mayan power-play goal in the third that finally sunk them. Saturday night's contest was the soon to be back-to-back SJHL player of the year's last at the Elgar Petersen Arena in his outstanding three year career.

Melfort took two leads in the game but the home side gave all 601 fans a reason to stick around. The game started with a buzz when the referee arrived late and appeared clearly out of his element all night long. Trevor Posch dropped the gloves against Ashton Clark off the opening whistle, much to the applause of the Broncos' faithful who clearly gave Posch the knock-out. Likely a dozen calls were missed both ways including a violent two-handed slash from Mayan to the back of Josh Bergen's legs that the man in stripes couldn't pick up on. Bergen eventually picked up a ten minute misconduct after giving his opinion to the official following Mayan's goal seconds later.

If spotted Mayan's hack is likely a major penalty, instead he gets off infraction free and tucks in the game winning goal.

Schatz took the high road after the game and wouldn't comment on the officiating. He did continue to say that they won't rollover in their handful of games that remain.

"Some teams might want to pack in the bags and head home early but that can't be the mentality we have. We have to stick with it, we have to make sure that we are building on something like I said before. That's all we can do right now."

Howard Yawit opened the scoring in the first period but Michael Korol scored his ninth from Laramie Kostelansky and Matthew Parsons to make it 1-1 after one period.

Tristan Frei reached the 30 goal plateau with his third of the weekend in the second period which put Melfort up 2-1 after 40 minutes.

Daniel McKitrick would draw the Broncos even again, the 18 year-old has 19 goals on the season. Chris Van Os-Shaw and Schatz picked up the assists. McKitrick could be the first Bronco to reach 20 goals since Joey Davies and Cody Pongracz each surpassed that total in 2012-13.

Mayan's winner came at 2:58 of the third period.

Carter Seminuk has been under barrage the last couple games in the Humboldt net but the 18 year-old was superb stopping 42/45 shots, Richard Palmer allowed two on 32 Bronco chances.

The Broncos were 2/5 with the man advantage, the game winner was Melfort's only power-play goal in three opportunities.

Humboldt will now play two more home games, on Tuesday the Battlefords visit for the last time, the Melville Millionaires are in town on Friday night. They will close with three straight road affairs.

Despite the hard year, Schatz wanted to point out their young core and the progress that has been made and the work they need to do on their own to get the team out of this rut.

"We've got a good core group of 18 year-olds as you can see, we have good 20 year-old group coming back. Guys just have to put in the work in the off-season, that's the big thing."

You can hear more from Schatz below in his interview with Bolt FM's Clark Stork.

Elsewhere Saturday night, the Yorkton Terriers claimed the last playoff spot with a 5-4 shoot-out loss in Kindersley, Melville was also eliminated with a 5-2 loss to Nipawin. The Weyburn Red Wings clinched the Viterra division in Estevan with an easy 6-2 win over the Bruins and the Flin Flon Bombers blanked Notre Dame 3-0.