The Aberdeen Wings fell 5-2 against the Bismarck Bobcats Saturday night inside the Odde Ice Center, earning a weekend split.
The Wings got on the board first — and quickly — when Jacob Bosse took a feed between the circles and skated in behind the defensemen to put the puck past Bismarck netminder Oskar Spinnars Nordin at the 1:11 mark in the opening period. It was Bosse’s tenth goal on the season, while Ronan Walsh and Hugo Gustafsson each notched this ninth assists on the play.
However, the Bobcats responded with five unanswered goals.
Ben Troumbly scored at the 16:09 mark in the first, and Calvin Hanson grabbed a loose puck at the 18:57 mark to give Bismarck the one-goal lead heading into the first break.
Bismarck started the middle stanza on the power play and Quinn Rudrud scored at the 1:33 mark in the period. Nico Chmelevski scored less than than a minute later at the 2:27 mark, and he put another in the back of the net later in the period at the 15:31 mark to give his team the 5-1 lead.
The Wings pulled Wings netminder Anton Castro from between the pipes and Greg Orosz stepped in for the third period, eventually stopping all eight shots he faced. Late in the period, the Wings got one back when Kevin MacKay skated the puck in between the circles and Jackson Yee was there to push the puck past Spinnars Nordin. It was Yee’s eleventh goal on the year, while MacKay grabbed his twelfth assist.
Overall, the Wings took 31 shots on goal while Bismarck took 35. The Wings held the Bobcats to 1-5 on the power play while going 0-4 themselves.
“Our level of compete was good, but the emotion of the game got the better of us in the middle part,” Wings head coach Steve Jennings said. “That makes it hard. When we refocused later, it was good. We pushed well in the third.”
The Wings hit the road this weekend for their last regular season series against the North Iowa Bulls with a 7:30 p.m. puck drop both Friday and Saturday, March 18-19. They’ll return to the Odde to close out March against the Austin Bruins.
“We’ll go back to work,” Jennings said about the upcoming week. “We did some really good things and want to refocus on that. We have to focus on some of the mental challenges we faced, which will make us better down the stretch.”
Fans can watch the weekend games using their HockeyTV login, or catch the games live at Buffalo Wings & Rings, the official home for Wings away games. Fans can listen to the game via Hub City Radio