BLAINE, Minn. – A night after the Bruins shutout the Jamestown Rebels 1-0, the Bruins were on the losing side of shutout falling to Janesville 4-0 in day two of the NAHL Showcase.
Austin went with a similar lineup on Thursday night as their winning lineup on Wednesday, but the Bruins weren’t able to top the Jets. One of the changes for the Bruins was in goal with Tyler Shea getting the nod in goal.
After a see-saw battle in the first, Janesville got their first tally of the night with a little less than two minutes remaining in the first period. Parker Lindauer rifled a wrister at Tyler Shea who made a left-pad kick save but the netminder found himself sprawled on the ice face first and an unfortunate bounce landed the puck right on Lindauer’s stick for a follow-up shot that found the back of the net.
After one and trailing 1-0, the Bruins came out in the second with vigor and came extremely close to tying the game on multiple occasions but shots glanced just wide or sailed inches above the crossbar. Janesville added to their lead twice in the second period, making it 3-0 with goals from Jack Rhode and Max Itagaski.
In the third, the Bruins bounced out of the locker room but dug their hole even deeper with an early period penalty and a resulting power-play goal for Janesville off the stick of Nick Brown. The Bismarck, ND, native got his second point of the season with the goal, a powerful wrister which sped past Shea. After surrendering the goal, Bruins Head Coach Steve Howard made a goaltending swap, pulling Tyler Shea in favor of Chaska, MN, native Zach Hansen.
Hansen stopped all the shots he saw in the remaining 18-plus minutes, but unfortunately for him, the Bruins offense couldn’t solve Jets goalie Grant Riley and the black-and-gold fell by a final score of 4-0.
With the loss, the Bruins fell to 1-1-0-0 on the young season while Janesville evened their record at 2-2-0-0. After the second day at the Showcase, every team in the Central division has lost at least one game, with Aberdeen being the only team to not have earned a win in the regular season.
Up next for the Bruins, they take on the New Mexico Ice Wolves and former Bruins Assistant Coach Keenan Kelly on Friday at 5:00 P.M. They’ll wrap up the NAHL Showcase on Saturday with a 6:30 P.M. game against the Kenai River Brown Bears. Both games can be found online with full play-by-play on HockeyTV.
Following the Showcase, the Bruins head to Aberdeen, SD, for a rematch of the 2019 opening round of the playoffs with the Aberdeen Wings. Austin will return the favor by welcoming Aberdeen to Riverside Arena on October 4 and 5, the teams first true home games during the regular season. Tickets for the Bruins home games in October go on sale at all ticket vendors on Monday, September 30.
