AUSTIN, Minn. – The Austin Bruins tallied five goals from four different goal scorers on Friday night to topple the Minnesota Magicians, 5-1, in the series finale.
Following their shootout loss on Thursday night, the Bruins bounced back in a big way against the Magicians. Despite neither goaltender allowing a goal in the first period, Austin came out in the second with a vengeance. In his 100th career junior game, all with the Bruins and all consecutively, Peter Jacobs netted his twelfth goal of the season after a scramble in front in which he knocked a loose puck in the crease for the 1-0 Bruins lead. Later in the period, while enjoying a 4-on-3 power-play, Garrett Dahm lasered a shot past Magicians’ goalie Darius Bell for his first goal of the night and propelled the Bruins to a 2-0 lead.
In the third period, the Bruins added to their lead when Sutter Muzzatti pushed a shot from behind the goal line that banked a pass off of Bell’s skate and into the back of the net. The goal, Muzzatti’s third of the season, was scored only 10 seconds into the third period. Following the goal, Minnesota opted to change goaltenders and go with Marino Ramirez in relief. The Bruins welcomed Ramirez into the game by netting their fourth goal of the game, with an impressive give-and-go. Alex Trombley broke into the zone and dropped a pass to Braidan Simmons-Fischer who wasted no time to immediately feed the puck back to Trombley who redirected the puck through the legs of Ramirez. With the lead no sitting at 4-0, Austin didn’t let off the gas scoring their fifth goal of the game when Garrett Dahm intercepted a pass at the defensive blue line and split the defenders for a breakaway. Dahm netted his second goal of the game, his 10th overall this season with snipe over Ramirez’s shoulder.
Late in the third period, Minnesota broke the goose-egg with a power-play goal on a tic-tac-toe set up that got behind Bruins goalie Tyler Shea for the Magicians’ first goal of the game. Despite the power-play goal, Austin shut down the Magicians’ offensive push for the rest of the game and finished out the victory, 5-1.
With the win, the Bruins improved to 17-25-4-3 while the Magicians slipped to 23-18-2-5 on the year. Tyler Shea earned the win in goal stopping 23 of 24 Magicians shots while Darius Bell was handed the loss turning aside 19 of 22 Bruins shots. In addition, Ramirez was good on two of four Bruins’ chances.
Up next for Austin, they welcome the St. Cloud Norsemen to Riverside Arena on Saturday night for the conclusion of their three-in-three weekend. Tickets for Saturday night’s game are available at www.austinbruins.com.
