Bighorns skate by Nationals

The Glacier Nationals of the North American Tier 3 Hockey League play a long season. And if injuiries and illness hit, it can make things difficult, which is something the Nationals learned first-hand this past weekend against the powerful Helena Bighorns.

The Nationals and the Bighorns met Saturday in a battle of Frontier Division teams and even though Glacier was able to hang around two periods against Helena, the Bighorns proved to be too much for the Nationals and earned a 7-1 victory over the home team at the Havre Ice Dome.

With the loss, the Nationals drop to 1-10-3 on the season and saw their winless streak extend to seven games. The Bighorns on the other hand, improved to 8-2 on the season and kept their standing among the top four in the Frontier standings.

The Nationals, who lost in a shootout their last meeting with Helena, had hopes of getting their first win since Oct. 4, but the Bighorns had other ideas and jumped out to an early 2-0 advantage on goals by Matt Mohar and Brandt Miller, the second coming with 11:27 left in the first period.

The score would stay that way into the second period, when Miller struck again, beating Nationals’ goalie Nolan Slager on an unassisted goal to give Helena a 3-0 lead with 12:52 left in the second.

Yet, Glacier managed to battle its way back into the game, when Tyler McMahon found the back of the net with six minutes remaining in the second period to trim the Bighorn lead to 3-1. The goal was assisted by Joshua Larson and Gavin Lubin.

“I thought that we played pretty competitively through two periods,” Nationals head coach Rob Powell said. “We played them even in the second period and actually the goal they had went (in off) the skate of one of our guys, so really we should have outplayed them 1-0 in the second.”

With the game still within reach, the Nationals tried desperately to get another goal and apply even more pressure on the Bighorns, but it wasn’t meant to be. Kendall Bolen-Porter scored with 11:18 to go in the game to give Helena a 4-1 advantage, one that would prove too difficult for the Nationals to overcome.

Yet, for good measure, the Bighorns tacked on three more goals before the end of the game, as Jay Forbes, Nick Trefry and Brandon Mills each beat Slager in the game’s final eight minutes to finalize the 7-1 road win for Helena.

“We just kind of ran out of gas at the end,” Powell said. “Not to make excuses or anything but we have a lot of guys that are either sick or injured, so we really don’t have a lot of depth right now and that really makes it hard to compete.”

As hard as they tried, the Nationals simply couldn’t keep up with a Helena team filled with superior skaters. When it was all said and done, the Bighorns outshot the Nationals 41-23.

Slager was hit with the loss for Glacier after allowing seven of the 41 shots he faced to find the net. Kruger earned the win for Helena after notching 22 saves and giving up just the one goal.

Things will not get any easier for the Nationals, who will welcome the Gillette Wild into the Havre Ice Dome this Friday and Saturday for back-to-back games. The Wild are currently 10-5 on the season and are second in the Frontier with 20 points. The Nationals remain in sixth place with just five points, one point ahead of last place Bozeman.