Minot takes two from Wilderness in Cloquet

It was a tough couple of games for the Minnesota Wilderness this past weekend. The North American Hockey League Wilderness dropped back-to-back games to the Minot Minotauros by scores of 6-3 and 4-3 at Northwoods Credit Union Arena.

In opening-game action on Friday, the Minotauros steamrolled to a 3-0 first period lead with18 shots on the Wilderness net.

"We just came out flat in the first period," said Wilderness head coach Jon Vaillancourt. "They are a very good squad; they outskated us and it showed in our play that period."

The Wilderness struggled to rebound against Minot, managing back-to-back scores in the second period as Chikara Hanzawa scored at 2:27 and Aaron Hayes scored at 6:44 to cut the gap to 3-2. However, before the period ended, the Minotauros added two of their own with the last goal coming with just nine seconds remaining in the period to go up 5-2 entering the final stanza.

In retrospect, the Wilderness lost the special teams' portion of the game by giving up a pair of power play goals and an empty net short-handed goal with 10 seconds left to play. On their side of the ledger, the Wilderness went 0-for-5 on their man advantage attempts.

"Our penalty kill has been very good for us most of the season, but we had a down night on Friday," Vaillancourt said. "Our goalie didn't make the big saves we needed and we didn't challenge them enough."

Nate Horn scored the lone Wilderness goal at 5:22 of the third period to pull the Wilderness to within 5-3, but the empty net goal sealed the game for the Minotauros.

For the game, the Wilderness put 34 shots on Minot goalie Ben Garrity, who made 31 saves, while the Wilderness goalie made 30 saves in the loss.

On Saturday Hanzawa got the Wilderness on the board at 9:29 of the first period, but the Minotauros evened things at 1-1 less than four minutes later.

After giving up a goal at 1:21 of the second period, the Wilderness responded quickly as Garrett Worth scored 15 seconds later on an assist from Bram Scheerer. The wild second period got crazier when the Wilderness' Tyler Watkins scored with 16 seconds

remaining to make it 3-2, but Minot answered with a goal with just two seconds remaining from Cole Hanson to tie things at 3-3 entering the third period.

"We played much better in our game on Saturday," Vaillancourt said. "We made costly mistakes which added up to cost us the game."

Cade Stibbe scored at 7:13 of the third period to move the Minot ahead 4-3 on the scoreboard. The Wilderness had a shot to tie the score at the end of the game on the power play, but like on Friday night, they were unable to convert when it counted most. On the weekend the Wilderness went 0-for-7 with the extra attacker.

"We have struggled with our power play. It is partly our not moving the puck well, but also we have a few new players in our lineup that are just starting to learn our power play and the guys on it," Vaillancourt said. "It's frustrating when you don't score on the power play. We had some nice opportunities to bury the puck, but didn't capitalize on them. It's frustrating, but we need to learn and grow from this experience."

The two wins moved the Minotauros past the Wilderness in the NAHL Central Division standings. Bismarck leads the division with 30 points, Minot is second with 27 points, Aberdeen and the Wilderness are tied for third with 25 points, while Austin and St. Cloud are fifth and sixth in the standings, respectively.

"We have struggled the last three games, there is no question about that," Vaillancourt said. "We need to look at some of our veteran players to step up and change the momentum back in our favor."

The Wilderness will return to the ice next Wednesday at home against the Austin Bruins the night before Thanksgiving. All fans of the Wilderness are invited to attend the event, which will feature turkey bowling.