The Aberdeen Wings improved to 17-1 on the season after a 3-1 win over the Bismarck Bobcats Saturday night at the Odde Ice Arena.
The win also marked head coach Scott Langer’s 603rd win in the North American Hockey League (NAHL), making him the league’s all-time winningest coach.
Aberdeen got on the board first late in the opening period with a goal from Payton Matsui at the 16:30 mark, assisted by Will Arquiett and Clayton Cosentino, who picked up his 23rd assist of the season. The teams headed into the locker room with the Wings leading 1-0.
Matsui scored the second period’s lone goal at the 8:02 mark off an assist from Spencer Schneider and Liam Fraser. That goal was Matsui’s tenth of the season and gave the Wings the 2-0 cushion heading into the final period.
After a late Wings penalty in the second, the Bobcats started the third period with the one-man advantage. Bismarck’s Austin Schwartz scored on the power-play at the 1:33 mark to put the Bobcats within one. However, Cade Neilson answered less than a minute later, assisted by Michael Reed, to seal the win for Aberdeen and snag the sweep.
“Our guys rebounded off a tough loss prior to the break,” Langer said. “They found a way to take four points from a very good team.”
Wings goalie Jacob Sibell stopped 32 of the 33 shots he faced. The Wings went 0-2 on the power-play.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Cosentino said after the game. “The first ten minutes of the first period we struggled a little bit but after that we kind of got our feet going. We still have a few things we need to clean up, just a little rusty coming off the break, but we’ll be ready for next week.”
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The Wings have the upcoming weekend off; they’ll return to play at the Odde on Friday, January 15 when they host the St. Cloud Norsemen. Fans can purchase tickets ahead of the game online at tickets.AberdeenWings.com.