Wilderness split series with St. Cloud

The Minnesota Wilderness split a home-and-home series with St. Cloud last weekend. The team’s 8-0 drubbing of the Norsemen at home on Saturday will be the last time they’ll be on home ice for a while.

The Wilderness embark on a nine-game road swing beginning with three games this weekend, one at the Minnesota Magicians in Richfield on March 3, and two at Springfield in Illinois on March 4-5. They’ll follow that with six games in Alaska, three at Anchorage and then three at Kenai River. They’ll return home for a series against Janesville on March 25-26.

Despite the 5-2 loss in St. Cloud Friday night, the Wilderness outshot and throughout many stages outplayed the St. Cloud Norsemen.

The Wilderness outshot St. Cloud by a 34-32 count—marking only the fourth time this season the Norsemen did not have the upper hand in shots on goal.

It was the 13th straight victory for St. Cloud (28-14-1) who were paced with two goals from Nik Hong. The Minneapolis native had both of his tallies in the first period, helping his team build a 3-1 lead.

After Duke Kiffin scored to give the Norsemen the first lead of the game 4:14 into period one, Hong fired in a rebound past Wilderness starting netminder Konrad Kausch to make it 2-0 8:50 left. After Kullan Daikawa countered for the Wilderness to make it a one-goal game just 1:17 later, Hong scored what ended up as the game-winner with a minute left in the period.

Things turned around for the Wilderness on Saturday as they scored early and often and stopped the winning streak in an 8-0 win. The win tied the team’s best offensive output for the season and tied a franchise record for its largest margin of victory.

Sam Antenucci led the way with two goals, while Niko Rexine had a 3-point game with a goal and two assists. Bobby Metz, Gunnar Thoreson, Max Neill, Jared Mangan each finished the night with one goal and an assist (Mangan’s first), while Max Ruoho and Kullan Daikawa both had a multi-point game with two assists.

The Wilderness also got a goal from Calvin Knight, his first, and individual assists from Ethan Wolthers, Charlie Erickson, Severi Sulonen and Aaron Pionk.

Minnesota finished the night outshooting the Norsemen 30-17.

The Wilderness sit in sixth place in the Midwest Division with 47 points with 17 games remaining, just behind upcoming opponents Janesville (49) and Anchorage (51).