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A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Andrew Troy (26) celebrates his goal, from the blue line, to put the Wilderness up 2-0 late in the second period at Northwoods Credit Union Arena. Photos by
Wilderness defenseman Ondrej Trejbal (5) with his eye on the bouncing puck to keep it in the zone during the first-period power play at Northwoods Credit Union Arena.
It has been a tumultuous season for the Minnesota Wilderness. As they near the halfway point of the season, the Wilderness find themselves in unfamiliar territory in the standings - near the bottom of the North American Hockey League Central Division. The good news is the Wilderness picked up impressive back-to-back wins on Friday and Saturday at home over the bottom-dwelling Brookings Blizzard.
"It was an important weekend from a standpoint of making up ground in the standings," said Wilderness head coach Dave Boitz. "I thought on Friday we played pretty well. We had kind of a slow start and then got better as the game wore on and I thought our best period was the third period."
After a scoreless first period, Duluth East graduate Ash Altmann finally broke through for the Wilderness at 5:35 of the second period on an assist from Ryan Nelson. The Wilderness tacked on to that lead at 11:59 when another East graduate, Luke Dow, found Andrew Troy on a pass and Troy hammered his shot home, giving the Wilderness a 2-0 edge.
"We had a number of guys that had pretty good weekends," said Boitz. "By winning both games we were able to climb back into things a bit and cut into the lead the teams above us have in the standings."
Sam Antenucci made it 2-1 for Brookings on a goal with just over six minutes to play in the second period, but the Wilderness held tight defensively and in the nets as well as getting the final goal of the game from Austin Grzenia assisted by Jacob Herter for the final score of 3-1.
"It was a pretty good game up and down the ice, but as the game wore on we took over the ice more," explained Boitz. "It was a pretty well-played game with only a couple of penalties on each team."
Kaleb Johnson had a strong game in between the pipes for the Wilderness making 22 saves on 23 shots, while George McBey had 32 saves on 35 shots for the Blizzard.
Saturday night the Wilderness won 7-2 in a game where they outshot the Blizzard 47-24 as they cruised to the win.
A huge key for the weekend sweep was the fact that the Wilderness went 5-for-7 on the power play including a 4-for-4 effort on Saturday night.
Both Jack Johnson and Nate Horn had a pair of goals for the Wilderness and former Cloquet hockey player Dylan Johnson had a goal and a pair of assists for a three-point night.
"It was a big weekend for us because the two teams right above us in the standings both got swept," Boitz said. "So now we are within two and four points with games in hand and we play those teams in the second half of the season.
"It was really important to end before the break on a good note," he added.
The Wilderness are now on break and we won't play again until Dec. 28 at home against Austin.
"We play three right in a row against Austin right when we come back from break and those games will be important for us," Boitz said. "If we can stay consistent like we have been lately, we'll be fine."
The Wilderness are currently in fifth place in the Central Division and will need to move up at least one place in the standings in order to make the playoffs.
