By Sean Williams, www.minotauroshockey.com
St. Cloud, Minn. – To open February, the Minot Minotauros will make their way to St. Cloud to face a Norsemen team that will be featured in half of their matchups throughout the month. Heading into the weekend, the Minotauros still remain in fist place with a record of 29-9-1 and 59 points, while the Norsemen are in fourth place in the Central Division with a record of 17-12-3 and 44 points.
Familiarity has been a common theme for these two teams, as they are scheduled to play frequently this month and recently had four games in a row against each other. In the six games played up to this point, Minot has dominated the season series by owning a 5-1-0 against the Norsemen. In the season series, the Tauros are averaging 3.8 goals per game and allowing 1.5 goals per game. In their last four games against the Norsemen, the Tauros have exploded offensively by averaging 5 goals per game with three of those games being decided by three goals or more.
During that dominant stretch, Minot was able to utilize four or more different scorers three times. Colby Bear, Will Dawson, Colby Woogk, Chad Muller, Jack O’Hanisain, Joel Lehtinen, Niklas Ketonen, Nicholas Sewecke, Cayden Casey, Adam Mahler, John Small, and Trevor Stachowiak have all managed to score at least one goal against the Norsemen this year, as they look to continue the success against St. Cloud and aim to help the Minotauros maintain their grip on first place in the Central.
The Norsemen have shown the ability to score as well, totaling 104 goals in 39 games this year, however, they have given up 108 goals as the Tauros hold the edge in defending their net. Minot has a division best in both 135 goals scored and 80 goals allowed in 39 games. Although St. Cloud has struggled on the power play this year with a 12% power-play conversion, their 86% penalty-kill percentage is second in the division behind Minot’s 88% penalty-kill percentage.
As the schedule starts to wind down and both the Tauros and Norsemen continue fighting for a playoff spot, this month will be the last time the Tauros will head to St. Cloud. After their matchup in a few weeks, the teams will meet one more time in Minot at the end of March and that will be it for the regular season. Puck drop this weekend is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
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