Blaine, MN – The Minotauros opened their thirteenth season with a win over the Lone Star on the first day of the NAHL Showcase. The Tauros have historically struggled on the Showcase’s first day having won just twice at the league’s season kickoff event. The only two previous seasons that the Tauros won the opener they went on to have been successful overall going 4-0-0 in 2016 and 3-0-1 in 2019.
This season’s game opened with a fairly even first period that saw the teams fail to change the scoreboard with 17 combined shots (9-8 in favor of Lone Star) all stopped by the Tauros James Norton and Lone Star’s Deivis Rolovs. Early in the second however the Tauros’ Colby Woogk broke through to give the Tauros a 1-0 lead. With the Tauros down a man due to a too many men penalty Trevor Stachowiak freed up the puck with a hit on Antti Autere and Nick Sewecke picked it up and fired a shot that was gloved by Rolovs creating an offensive zone draw for the shorthanded Tauros. John Emmons won that ensuing faceoff to Payne Gatewood who’s shot was deflected up and out of play for another offensive zone faceoff for the penalized Tauros. Again Emmons won it back, this time to Colby Woogk who blasted a slap shot past Rolovs to give the Tauros the lead on a shorthanded goal.
That score would hold into a penalty filled third period that saw 25 minutes in penalties. After the teams traded fruitless power play opportunities in the first five minutes of the period the Tauros would get another chance on the man advantage at the 5:03 mark when Charlie Masek was sent to the box for tripping. This time they would break through as Joel Lehtinen rifled a puck past Rolovs’ glove from the top of the right circle.
The penalized Brahma would atone for his mistake however just 1:41 after Lehtinen’s goal as he deflected a puck through Norton off of a point shot from Ray Murakami after contact had knocked Norton’s stick from his blocker hand. Lone Star would try to push back to draw even but Shane Carr’s hit on Emmons was called for a five minute major and game misconduct for head contact sending the Brahmas to the penalty kill for the final 1:42 of the contest. From there the Tauros closed out the game and held on to win 2-1.
Next up the Tauros take on the Maine Nordiques for the first time in franchise history. The Nords also won on the Showcase’s opening day with an impressive 7-2 tromping of the Chippewa Steel. The games can be seen NAHLtv via pay-per-view video or listened to for free via Mixlr in the Tauros Hockey mobile app for Apple and Android.