Wilderness fight for playoff spot at home this weekend

Last weekend was a big opportunity for the Minnesota Wilderness to make a move up the standings in the Central Division of the North American Hockey League. The Cloquet-based Wilderness played host to the Brookings Blizzard: a team with just five wins in 35 games played, and a team mired in last place in the division. Instead of a sweep and a chance to solidify their third-place hold in the division, the Wilderness lost both games and now find themselves in the fourth and final playoff spot.

"It was a tough weekend from the wins standpoint," said Wilderness assistant coach Mark Vichorek. "On Friday we had a great start to the first period and then put three goals up in the second period, but then we struggled - as we have quite a bit this year - in the third period and then eventually lost it in overtime."

Despite outshooting the Blizzard 17-11 in the first period, the Wilderness found themselves in a 2-1 hole after the opening stanza with the only Minnesota goal coming from Oula Kuure on the power play with 5:32 left in the period.

The second period saw the Wilderness score three times with both Jack Johnson and Isaac Kobienia picking up their 12th goals of the season and Luke Dow his fourth of the season. Ryan Green scored the only goal of the period for the Blizzard, but it kept them close at 4-3 entering the third period.

"We felt good going into the locker room after the second period. The guys were moving their feet and we were attacking the net," recalled Vichorek. "Unfortunately the third period has been a problem at times for us on the season and they got the tying goal late against us."

The goal was scored by Green, his second of the contest, with just 3:47 left in regulation. In overtime the Wilderness came out hard and fired three shots on Blizzard goalie George McBey, only to be stopped on all three. Owen Belisle notched the game winner for Brookings to end the contest.

"I don't think we took them for granted," Vichorek said. "We had a great week of practice leading up to the weekend, but we have a few injuries and they are pretty healthy right now. It is disappointing because had we picked up four points we could have moved three points back of Austin for second place."

On Saturday night the Wilderness came out looking for revenge, but Brookings goalie Jack Caruso - who had been knocked out of the game on Friday night during the Wilderness second period scoring onslaught - was stellar and staunchly defended his net, allowing just one goal on 26 shots.

After a scoreless first period, the Blizzard scored a pair of goals in the second period putting the Wilderness on their heels entering the final period. It wasn't until Blake Holmes scored on the power play, and with the Wilderness goalie pulled with 1:21 to play in regulation, that the Wilderness finally got on the scoreboard.

"Caruso played very well for them in goal on Saturday," Vichorek said. "I thought Ryan Fanti also played well for us, but it was a back-and-forth game. We ended up getting the goal to pull to within one at the end of the game on a power play, but we just couldn't get the goal to tie the game."

The pair of losses puts the Wilderness three points up on Bismarck with the Bobcats holding a game in hand over Minnesota. Ironically, the Wilderness open a two-game series with Bismarck this weekend in the biggest series of the season thus far. A pair of losses to Bismarck would drop the Wilderness into fifth place and out of the fourth and final playoff position, but a pair of wins would go a long way to solidifying a hold on a postseason berth.

"Bismarck is in the same boat as us right now, they need a win and they need to come out and play hard," Vichorek said. "I think both teams will be ready to play and I think the fans will get their money's worth this weekend."

Both games are at Northwoods Credit Union Arena with the Friday game scheduled for 7:05 p.m. and the Saturday game set for 7:35 p.m.