Austin Bruins swept by Aberdeen Wings 5-1 Saturday evening
Coming off of a tough 6-5 loss Friday night, the Austin Bruins were looking for a split of their NAHL Central Division series with Aberdeen at Riverside Arena Saturday evening, and although the Bruins outshot the Wings 53-36, Aberdeen goaltender Adam Dybal turned away 52 shots, and the Wings were a perfect 4 for 4 on the power play in a 5-1 win.
Austin’s only goal of the game came at 11:07 of the first period when Dylan Cook tallied on the power play for his 10th goal of the season, with assists to Austin Salani, his 25th, and to Alex Laurenza, his 20th to make the score 2-1 in favor of Aberdeen at that point. The Wings would go on to tally twice more in the first period for a 4-1 lead after one, and a goal from Leonid Bulgakov, his 10th of the season at 8:18 of the second period accounted for the 5-1 final.
Austin’s Trent Wiemken turned away nine of the 13 shots he faced in the first period before being pulled at 14:51 for Logan Rose, who played the remainder of the game and turned away 19 of the 20 shots he faced. The Bruins were whistled for six penalties for 12 minutes, while Aberdeen was called for seven penalties for 14 minutes. Austin was 1 for 5 with the man advantage, while the Wings were 4 for 4 in helping themselves to the weekend sweep.
With the loss, the Bruins are now 18-15-1-0-1 for 37 points and fifth place in the division, two points back of fourth-place St. Cloud and three points back of now third-place Aberdeen. Austin returns to action on the road this coming Friday and Saturday as they travel to Bismark to take on the Bobcats, with face-off from the VFW Sports Center at 7:15 p.m. both evenings.