By: Ken Oda, minotuaroshockey.com
Brookings, SD – The Tauros finished up their third consecutive road weekend in Brookings taking on the Blizzard and the travel clearly took its toll. Tyler Parks stopped 38 of 40 Blizzard shots but the offense clearly was tired; after out-shooting Brookings 10-9 in after the first they were out-shot 32-12 the rest of the way. The resulting 3-1 loss gave the Tauros their fourth consecutive weekend split.
Brookings opened the scoring at the 6:48 mark of the first when Cody Marooney scored on the powerplay. Collin Abitz then drew the Tauros even late in the first on a wrap around play that beat Drew Weigman five-hole at the 17:54 mark.
The teams then played to a stalemate for the next 36:46 of game time. Tyler Parks kept Minot’s hope alive making 29 consecutive saves before Marooney solved him again with only 5:26 remaining. Thomas Williams added an empty net, shorthanded goal to push the final to 3-1.
The Tauros managed only two shots in the final period, perhaps a result of having played an overtime game in Austin, MN the night before. The Tauros powerplay struggled as well going 0-for-8 on the evening; though the penalty kill did play well killing 5-of-6 penalties including a long 5-on-3 in the third period.
Next Up: The Tauros play a rare in-season exhibition game against rival Bismarck on Tuesday in Dickenson, ND. Then they finally return home to host those same Bobcats on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m.; tickets are still available by clicking on the “tickets” tab atop this page.