by: Ken Oda, minotauroshockey.com
Aberdeen, SD – The Minotauros schedule continues to challenge the team as they play a home and home set with the Aberdeen Wings this weekend. After opening the season with 11 of 13 games away from the Maysa the Tauros the Tauros finally were able to mix in a few home games as the calendar turned to November. However, they still have been on the bus seven of the first nine weekends of the season and had a rare weekday game mixed in earlier this week.
Tonight the Tauros head to Aberdeen as winners of two in a row and sitting in first place in the Central Division. The Tauros won in a shootout in Aberdeen last Saturday night ending a three game losing streak; meanwhile the Wings have dropped eight in a row and have not won in over a month, their last win coming October 9th over the Magicians.
Offensively the Tauros have six players in double figures scoring seventeen games into the season. The offense has cooled of late however dropping to 10th in the league at 3.12 goals per game. While the goals have dropped off the chances have not, the Tauros are still fifth in the league with 31.82 shots per game. The key has been a balanced attack that sees four of the Tauros defensemen (James LaDouce, Sam Fuss, Jared Brandt, and Jacob Dittel) in the team’s top 10 scorers. Aberdeen’s offense has trended the other way of late, with seven goals over the last two games they have brought their season average to 2.13 goals per game. Tucker DeYoung (3g 8a) and Gavin Payne (7g 2a) have been the Wings two main threats on offense.
Defensively the Tauros have been good at limiting shots allowing the sixth fewest per game at 25.53. From there Lucas Murray (2.45 gaa .902 sv%) and Jon Flakne (2.05 gaa .919 sv%) have done well to keep the puck out of the net keeping the Tauros to a NAHL eighth best 2.41 goals against average. The Wings however are giving up 34.53 shots per game including 52 to the Tauros last Saturday which is ranked 18th in the league. The result is a 3.13 goals against average which ranks 16th in the league.
After the game in Aberdeen tonight the Tauros and Wings meet again tomorrow in the Maysa at 7:35 p.m. Tickets for that game are available by clicking the “Tickets” tab atop this page. Tomorrow night the Tauros will once again be wearing the red and blue Dream Catchers Baseball jerseys, the jerseys will be auctioned off after the game on November 21st with a portion of the proceeds going to the Dream Catchers.