Nationals, Wild meet at the Ice Dome

After a week on the road, the Glacier Nationals hockey team will return to the Havre Ice Dome this weekend for a pair of games against the Gillette Wild.

Glacier, which earned its first win of the season against the Billings Bulls last Saturday, currently sits in sixth place in the Frontier Division of the North American Tier 3 Hockey League. Starting Friday, the Nationals will look to improve on their 1-5-1 record as they host the Wild in back-to-back games tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. respectively.

Despite the fact that Gillette enters the game against the Nationals as favorites thanks to its 4-2 record on the season, the Nationals earned a point off the Wild earlier this season by way of an overtime loss back on Sept. 27. The Wild won that game 5-4 and also own an 8-2 victory over the Nationals this season.

Yet, since that overtime loss, the Nationals have been much more competitive and their offense has also found a way to start putting the puck into the net. In seven games, the Nationals have a total of 18 goals but have scored nine in their last two games.

For the season, Glacier's most effective scorer has been Tyler McMahon, one of the few players who was with the team a season ago. In seven games, he has scored nine times. No other Nationals player has more than two goals, which Wyatt Fretheim, Marvin Simmons and William Bostwick have all done.

Gillette, on the other hand, has put together a much more balanced offensive attack. Alex King is the Wild's leading scorer with five goals. Cade Boreing has also scored four goals, while Kyle Traux and Gennadi Zabeline each have three.

In the net, the Wild will have a big advantage no matter who is between the pipes for the Nationals and that's because the Wild have one of the top goaltenders in the league in Alex Freese.

Freese has a 3-1 record this season and goals against average of just 2.01. He has also turned away more than 95 percent of the shots he has faced this season. Stephen Wroe may also see time in goal for the Wild. He is 1-1 on the season with a goals against average of 4.48

The Nationals have three players who could see time between the pipes, but it's likely that Ben Perone, who started both games last weekend will see some time. He has a goals against average of 5.93 and a save percentage of 85 percent. Ryail Purdy has also seen time this year as well as Mikhail Pahrebets.

The Nationals will do battle tonight against the Wild at 8 p.m. Then, Saturday to two teams will duke it out at 7:30 p.m.