Let's play hockey

The Minnesota Wilderness opened the North American Hockey League season with a bang this past week. After losing the opening game on Wednesday, the Wilderness exploded to win three straight games at the NAHL Showcase tournament in Blaine.

On Wednesday, the Wilderness opened with a hard-fought 2-1 loss to Topeka to open the tournament. Nate Horn scored the lone goal for the Wilderness and goaltender Ryan Ouellette made 18 saves in a valiant effort for the Cloquet-based squad.

"Topeka was a tough opening game for us because they have an older more experienced group of players on that team who played together last season," coach Jon Vaillancourt said. "We have a lot of new faces this season and we improved as the game progressed."

The Wilderness found their first official win of the season - the exhibition games earlier this month didn't count - Thursday by downing the Springfield Blues 5-1 behind two goals from Brady Hunter and a 25-save effort from Ouellette.

"I feel the strong finish we had in the game against Topeka helped us when we played Springfield," Vaillancourt said. "We started to defend well and create odd man opportunities on the rush."

Hunter opened the scoring with the only goal of the third period and then closed the scoring with the final goal of the game in the third period. Sandwiched in between were goals by Ryan Nelson, Ryan Antonakis and Tyler Watkins of Hermantown.

"Hunter is have a great start to his junior [hockey] career," Vaillancourt said. "We love the way he competes on the ice and his ability to find pucks."

On Friday, Jonathan Mor stopped 24 shots in a 2-1 shootout victory over Corpus Christi in a game where the Wilderness were down 1-0 going into the final stanza.

"Our goaltending has improved with the addition of Mor, who came to us from the Omaha Lancers in the United States Hockey League," Vaillancourt said. "I think he did a great job of leading us to the win in the shootout."

The Wilderness tied the game on a Brandon McNamara goal and won the game in the shootout on goals from Kimball Johnson and Nathan Poolman. Mor ended the game by stopping two of three shots he faced in the three-round shootout.

The Wilderness picked up their third win of the season in four games Saturday by shutting out Shreveport 3-0.

"Shreveport was a very strong team and we knew that this would be the hardest game for the team as it was our fourth game in four days," Vaillancourt said. "I thought our commitment to the defensive end zone structure was excellent and we decided to go back to Ouellette in goal and he played extremely well for us again. We had a very poor first period against Shreveport and Ryan made some big time saves that kept us in it until we figured out things in the second period."

After a scoreless first period, Hunter got the Wilderness on the board for a 1-0 lead after two. Then it was former Hermantown players Watkins and Jacob Herter who scored in the third period to put the game away.

"Overall I think as a team we improved through the week in each game," Vaillancourt said. "Our players' attention to detail and commitment to excellence really showed as we faced new challenges throughout the week.

"I spoke in great length before the season about the blue collar culture of the Wilderness program and how our play should represent our fans and the communities of northern Minnesota that support us every night," he said. "We won some tight games this past week because we had a strong locker room and players committed to each other."

If that continues the rest of the season, it could be a special year for the Wilderness.

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Wilderness at home

All games at Northwoods Credit Union Area at 7:05 p.m. unless otherwise specified

Oct. 4 Minot Minotauros

Oct. 5 Minot Minotauros

Oct. 10 Austin Bruins

Oct. 18 Aberdeen Wings

Oct. 19 Aberdeen Wings

Nov. 2 St. Cloud Blizzard

Nov. 6 St. Cloud Blizzard

Nov. 15 Minot Minotauros

Nov. 16 Minot Minotauros

Nov. 27 Austin Bruins

Dec. 13 St. Cloud Blizzard

Dec. 27 Austin Bruins

Dec. 28 Austin Bruins

Dec. 31 St. Cloud Blizzard

Jan. 17 Bismarck Bobcats

Jan. 18 Bismarck Bobcats

Jan. 25 Janesville Jets

Jan. 26 Janesville Jets, Proctor, 5:05

Feb. 14 Aberdeen Wings

Feb. 15 Aberdeen Wings

Feb. 21 Bismarck Bobcats

Feb. 22 Bismarck Bobcats

Feb. 28 Chippewa Steel

Feb. 29 Chippewa Steel

Mar. 13 Minnesota Magicians

Mar. 20 Aberdeen Wings

Mar. 21 Aberdeen Wings

Mar. 26 Minnesota Magicians

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If you go

Home opener, Oct. 4-5

With your game ticket, enjoy food, tailgating and live music before the puck drops each night of opening weekend.