SIOUX FALLS – While the Aberdeen Cougars will likely be underdogs in each game they play at the Boys’ State Hockey Tournament starting today, the squad will hit the ice with a load of confidence.

The Cougars will meet second-seeded Sioux Falls Flyers East at 2:45 this afternoon in the opening round of the tourney, which runs through Saturday.

Sioux Falls won both meetings during the season, the first 8-0, and the second a much closer 4-1 verdict.

While Aberdeen lost the second contest, Cougars coach Dana Myhre believes the game helped his players.

“I think we got a little confidence out of that,” Myhre said. “We think we can play with them.”

Aberdeen has played well down the stretch and will carry that confidence into today’s contest.

“They’re a good team defensively, but I feel we’re playing our best hockey right now, which is the right time to be playing that,” Myhre said. “It’s going to be a challenge, obviously. They’re the number two seed for a reason. I think we can skate with them if we play our game and play with some energy. It should be wide open.”

A big key for the Cougars will be keeping all of their players on the ice at the same time. Penalties have forced the squad to play short-handed often this season.

“We’ve taken way too many penalties this year. Obviously, that’s going to be a key, is staying out of the penalty box,” Myhre said. “That’s our message to our guys all the time, we can’t be playing short-handed. It’s not a winning method.”

The Cougars struggled to bury the puck to start the season, but that has changed in a major way lately. The squad produced nine goals in a game three times at the back end of the season.

“Our biggest thing is, we’ve struggled to score goals, that’s where we started out,” Myhre said. “Just getting the guys to think about a different way of scoring, not so much the I’m going to do it all myself mentality. It’s been a process getting them to think about sharing the puck and making plays. We’re getting there. It’s gotten a lot better.”

Things began to change following a narrow win over Huron during a jamboree to start the season.

“The next day in practice I talked to our guys about we need to change our mindset on how we score goals,” Myhre said. “And I think we’ve done that.”

Aberdeen defeated the same Huron squad 9-1 late in the season.

Another strong case in point was an overtime win over Brandon Valley to start the campaign compared to a 9-0 win over the IceCats a couple of weeks ago.

“We’ve got plenty of guys that can score,” Myhre said. “They struggle from time to time, just the mindset of how they play has really come a long way since the beginning of the season. It’s evident in practice, the way they set up plays.”

While every team enters a state tournament with an ultimate goal of winning a state championship, the Cougars will have a short-range objective when the puck is dropped this afternoon.

“This team hasn’t played a third game at the state tournament in 4-5 years. That’s been our goal from the get-go, is just to at least play a third game at the state tournament,” Myhre said. “Obviously, we’re focused on East right now. We’ll see what happens there, but that is our main goal is hopefully get a third game there.”

That means the Cougars will need to win at least one of their first two games to get a third game on Saturday.

Aberdeen can help itself in that quest by getting off to a good start against Sioux Falls today.

“We’re going to have to come out with a lot of energy and set the tone ourselves, and hopefully get that first goal,” Myhre said. “It’s just going to be a lot of energy, and playing smart and being solid defensively. If we can do that, I think we’ll have a chance.”