2 weeks Ago By Staff reports
AUSTIN — Jack Solomon held the North Iowa Bulls to one goal on Friday night in Mason City, Iowa. Carl Axelsson had to do his Austin Bruins goaltending partner one better on Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Axelsson stopped a whopping 46 shots — including 19 in the first period and 18 in the second — to earn his sixth shutout of the season as the Bruins beat the Bulls 4-0 in a North American Hockey League game at Riverside Arena.
Axelsson, a Minnesota Duluth commit, set a Bruins record for shutouts in a season and improved to 13-4-1 this season with a 1.72 goals-against average and a .938 save percentage.
He is 9-2-0 in his past 11 starts and has allowed 15 total goals in that span. More importantly for Austin: its victory, coupled with the Minot Minotauros’ 7-2 loss to the Aberdeen Wings, puts the Bruins in the driver’s seat to finish in second place in the NAHL Central Division regular season standings. That means the Bruins would get home-ice advantage for the first round of the division playoffs, which begin April 18.
With two games to go in the regular season, Austin (40-12-5) has 85 points, good for a four-point lead on third-place Minot (40-15-1, 81 points). The Bruins need just one point next weekend — simply getting one of their two games to overtime — to secure second place behind division champion Bismarck (45-10-2, 92 points). Austin closes the regular season with a home-and-home series against the last-place Minnesota Mallards (7:05 p.
m. Friday at Austin, 7 p.m.
Saturday in Forest Lake). ADVERTISEMENT Minot closes its regular season needing to sweep Bismarck and have Austin lose twice in regulation, in order to pass the Bruins for second place. Saturday’s win was a big boost to the Bruins home-ice hopes.
Gustav Svatesson — who broke a 20-game goal drought on Friday — scored again Saturday. His seventh goal of the season, 13:26 into the game, turned out to be the game winner. Nathan Williams and Tyler Shaver added goals in the second period, and Evan Malkhassian added a third-period goal to seal the victory, No.
251 as Bruins head coach for Steve Howard. BOX SCORE: Austin Bruins 4, North Iowa Bulls 0.
