Nationals shake the Quake

The Glacier Nationals have been a work in progress this season. But, now that they are in the second half of their schedule, their development as a team and as individuals is clear to anyone watching.

The improvement of the Nationals was evident Saturday night when Glacier earned its sixth win of the season by way of a 3-2 victory over the Yellowstone Quake. The win gave the Nationals a split in a two-game home set against the Quake, who defeated Glacier Friday by the score of 5-3 in Frontier Division play. Both games took place inside the Havre Ice Dome.

“I think that we really played well this weekend,” Nationals GM/head coach Butch Kowalka said. “We are starting to do some good things and we are being competitive every night. We aren’t having those brain farts where we lose 8-0. So we are really improving. We still need to do a better job of scoring goals, but overall we played really well, especially being shorthanded.”

After losing the opening game on Friday against the Quake, the Nationals were determined to come out on top Saturday, and just six minutes into the first period, Karson Frisk set the tone with a goal that gave Glacier the early 1-0 lead. Then, later in the period, Frisk, who has been on a tear recently, scored a second goal to give the Nationals a 2-0 lead after one.

“Karson is one of my returning players that was with me last year,” Kowalka said. “He’s been doing a great job lately and he came up with a couple of big goals tonight.”

Yellowstone answered in the second period with a goal by Mike McCullen that trimmed the Nationals’ lead to 2-1. That score would hold until the 19:24 mark of the third when Tyler McMahon scored to give Glacier a 3-1 cushion.

Needing to shut down the Quake, goaltender Ryan Lund and the Glacier defense made sure the two-goal lead was enough. Lund earned the win and stopped 31 of 33 shots. Yellowstone’s Max Doner did score with 46 seconds left to make the score 3-2. But it was too little too late and the Nationals staved off the comeback to seal the win.

Friday night, in the first of two games against Yellowstone, the Nationals got off to a promising start when Joshua Larson scored midway through the first to give them a 1-0 lead. Yet, the Quake responded with a goal in the second by Brandon Blasczyk to the send the game into the third period tied at 1-1.

In the final 20 minutes, the Nationals were simply no match for the Quake, who scored four goals in the period, one coming on an empty net with the Glacier trailing 4-3 in the final seconds. Dustin Foran did score twice to keep the Nationals within striking distance, including a goal with 3:34 remaining in the game get them within one at 4-3, but in the end, it was not enough.

Following their two-game set at home against the Quake, the Nationals continued their busy weekend by making the trip to Great Falls for a showdown against the first-place Americans.

Great Falls, which wanted revenge after losing on their home ice to Glacier the last time they met, jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first with a goal by Malachi Bushey. Then, the Americans added to it with a goal in the second by Zack Mese to give them a 2-0 advantage entering the third.

With 5:28 remaining in the game, Wyatt Fretheim found the net to get Glacier on the board and give the Nationals hope for a comeback win but unfortunately, they were not able to score the equalizer and Great Falls held on for a 2-1 win.

With a win and two losses, Glacier is now 5-22-5 on the season and currently sits in last place in the Frontier standings.

The Nationals will be back in action at the Havre Ice Dome Friday in a rematch against the Americans at 8 p.m. Glacier will then hit the road to take on Billings Saturday at 7 p.m., before returning home to battle Helena Sunday at 12:15 p.m.