It was a tough stretch on ice

It was a tough weekend for the Minnesota Wilderness hockey team, which dropped both games of its weekend matchup with the Aberdeen Wings. The Wilderness fell 4-3 in the opener on Friday night and 4-0 on Saturday at home at Northwoods Credit Union Arena.

In Friday's opening game, the Wilderness took a 1-0 lead after the first period on a goal by Eric Fawkes - his third of the season - on assists from Gavin Rassmussen and Ryan Nelson, who both played high school hockey for Cloquet-Esko-Carlton.

Aberdeen tied the game at the 4:43 mark of the second period, but the Wilderness edged ahead at 16:30 of the second when Nate Horn picked up his sixth goal of the season on assists from Nelson and Kimball Johnson. The Wilderness led it 2-1 entering the third period.

Troubles began for the Wilderness 7:10 into the final stanza when Riley Murphy converted on a turnover, tying the game at 2-2. Just over five minutes later Murphy added the second of his three goals on another turnover to give the Wings a 3-2 lead. However, the Wilderness responded with a power play goal with just 49 seconds remaining in regulation off the stick of Zach Michaelis from Horn and Tyler Watkins - sending the game into overtime.

"It was a really close game, but Aberdeen was able to force two different turnovers in the third period that ended up in the back of our net," said Wilderness coach Jon Vaillancourt. "Aberdeen took a late penalty which put us on the power play late in the period. We pulled our goalie to give us a 6-on-4 advantage. The boys did a nice job on the face-off of gaining the puck and setting up into our set play. Zach was able to find the rebound and put it away to tie the game for us."

In overtime it was a 3-on-3 goal by Murphy, his third of the game, on a shot from the slot making the final 4-3 in favor of the Wings.

Kaleb Johnson made 33 saves on 37 shots for the Wilderness while the Wings' Jake Sibell made 34 saves on 37 shots.

On Saturday night the Wings shut down the Wilderness offense and allowed only 19 shots on goal in picking up a 4-0 shutout win and a sweep of the two-game set.

"In the first game I thought our defense was good, but some timely mistakes really hurt us later in the game, and a large part of that was fatigue," Vaillancourt said. "In our second game I think we just came out flat and couldn't recover. Kaleb Johnson was fantastic both nights and gave us a chance to win on both nights."

Johnson faced 36 shots on Saturday making 32 saves.

The losses drop the Wilderness' record to 7-5-1 overall which is good for third place in the NAHL Central Division. The Wilderness have a total of 15 points on the season, which is just two points from first place in the division.

The Wilderness play this weekend at Aberdeen. Their next home game is Saturday, Nov. 2 vs the St. Cloud Blizzard. Puck drop is 7 p.m. Skate with the Wilderness after the game.