Missoula whipped up on the Helena Bighorns in a pair of games at Glacier Ice Rink, winning the first one 11-2 and the second 9-2.
Coming off a three-win, one-loss tournament last weekend that earned the Bruins the championship at the Spokane Fall Classic, Missoula outskated an undermanned Helena club to boost the home team's season record to 6-3.
After getting off to a slow start in the first game, the Missoula offense went into attack mode the rest of the day. The Bighorns actually scored the day's first goal, an unassisted tally by Wyatt Winfield 4:35 into the first period. But the Bruins leveled the score on a goal by Missoula Sentinel senior Ethan Prather four minutes later. Prather later added two assists.
Following the first intermission, the Bruins kicked it into gear, scoring the next three goals and netting six in the second period alone. Al Maul, Brett Mathews and Josh Rivey lit the lamp for the Bruins in the opening 5:08 of the second period before Justin Darlington found the back of the net for Helena's final goal. Missoula finished the period with goals from Colin Snodgrass, Cody Skilling and Zhenya Potanin.
The third period saw more of the same, beginning with Bruins goals by Anders Nord and Derek Snodgrass before Potanin scored the game's final two goals to complete his first hat trick of the season.
Missoula, which outshot the Bighorns 36-14, received 12 saves from goalie Kyle Laughnan.
“I think it was partly due to the holiday,” Johnson said of the Bruins' slow start. “We're not used to the breaks and we just started hitting our dry-land training pretty hard this week. So I think some of the legs were fairly stiff out of the gates.”
It didn't take long for Missoula to get on the board in the second contest as Prather opened the scoring just 1:23 in. Mathews and Sean Hubber followed with unassisted goals for the Bruins, who built a 3-0 advantage less than seven minutes in.
Chase Kimberling answered for the Bighorns, but Missoula completed the opening 18 minutes with goals from Derek Snodgrass and Maul to take a comfortable 5-1 lead into the second period.
Maul and Devin Emnett scored second-period goals for the Bruins before Kimberling tallied for the second time for Helena near the midpoint of the third period. Just over a minute passed before Maul tallied for the third time and Shae Heyman beat Bighorns goalie Marcus Ivey for the final goal of the day.
“I thought we definitely came out flying,” Johnson said. “We scored five times in the first period and that's always nice. But then you start to cheat a little because everybody wants to be the next goal scorer and that's when you get into bad habits. That's the only issue I had with the whole day.”
The Bruins host a pair of games at Glacier Ice Rink next Saturday and Sunday against the Butte Blues.
First game
Helena 1 1 0 - 2
Missoula 1 6 4 - 11
First period
H - Wyatt Winfield (unassisted), 4:35
M - Ethan Prather (Cody Skilling, Brett Mathews), 8:35
Second period
M - Al Maul (unassisted), 1:59
M - Mathews (Prather) (power play), 4:23
M - Josh Rivey (Pete Ferm, Derek Snodgrass), 5:08
H - Justin Darlington (Corbet Gournay),6:51
M - Colin Snodgrass (Mathews), 7:18
M - Skilling (Prather), 12:23
M - Zhenya Potanin (unassisted), 14:14
Third period
M - Anders Nord (Maul), 1:02
M - D. Snodgrass (unassisted), 2:43
M - Potanin (Mathews), 7:17
M - Potanin (Mathews, Shae Heyman) (power play), 14:47
Shots - Helena 14, Missoula 36. Saves - Helena 25 (Marcus Ivey, Michael Strauss), Missoula 12 (Kyle Laughnan). Penalties - Helena 6, Missoula 2. Power-play opportunities - Helena 0-2, Missoula 2-6.
Second game
Helena 1 0 1 - 2
Missoula 5 2 2 - 9
First period
M - Prather (C. Snodgrass), 1:23
M - Mathews (unassisted), 2:41
M - Sean Hubber (unassisted), 6:37
H - Chase Kimberling (unassisted), 7:59
M - D. Snodgrass (Hubber), 13:08
M - Maul (unassisted), 15:47
Second period
M - Maul (unassisted), 1:21
M - Devin Emnett (Potanin), 7:28
Third period
H - Kimberling (Jake Elkins), 7:58
M - Maul (Nord), 9:18
M - Heyman (Dan Sullivan), 13:07
Shots - Helena 14, Missoula 45. Saves - Helena 34 (Strauss, Ivey), Missoula 12 (Laughnan). Penalties - Helena 5, Missoula 9. Power-play opportunities - Helena 0-6, Missoula 0-3.
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