Bobcats Travel to Austin with Series Lead
Matchup: Bismarck Bobcats (37-19-4, 1st Central) vs Austin Bruins (29-27-4, 3rd Central)
Games: Friday, May 6, 7:05pm; Saturday, May 7, 7:05pm (if necessary)
Venue: Riverside Arena, Austin, Minn.
Series: Bobcats lead series 2-0
Regular Season Series: Bobcats won series 4-2-2
All-Time: Bobcats lead Bruins 30-20-4 (10-5 in playoffs)
Radio: SuperTalk 1270 AM, SuperTalk1270.com and the radioPup smartphone app, 6:35pm both nights
Internet TV: http://NAHL.FASTHockey.com, 6:35pm both nights
AUSTIN, MN – Posted to a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five-game Central Division Finals, the Bismarck Bobcats head to Minnesota with a chance to return to the Robertson Cup Tournament as they continue their second-round playoff series Friday with Game Three at Riverside Arena.
“As I’ve told our guys—and as I think they learned in the first round [against the Brookings Blizzard]—the third win in a series is always the hardest one to get,” asserted Bobcats head coach and general manager Layne Sedevie, whose squad led the Blizzard 2-0 in the division semifinals but dropped Game Three 2-1 before closing out the following night. “The good thing about the Brookings series is that it showed everyone how hard you’ve got to work to win in April.”
A strong offensive performance in the first two games of the divisional final delivered the Bobcats their advantage in the series: getting nine goals from eight different players while Willie Brown and Travis Wood each posted three-point games on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
Between the pipes, goalie Hunter Shepard made 25 saves in each of the series’ first two contests to steady a Bobcat team defense that has allowed a league-low 1.67 goals per game in the postseason.
Austin forwards Jade Miller and Jacob Paganelli both find themselves in the league’s top 10 for playoff scoring: Miller, the Bruins’ captain, is tied for fourth with nine points (3g, 9a); Paganelli, meanwhile, is eighth with seven points (3g, 4a).
Bruins netminder Kristofer Carlson has a 3.13 GAA in six Robertson Cup Playoff starts to go with an .898 SV% in his first postseason foray.
Friday’s contest will be broadcast live locally on SuperTalk 1270, KLXX-AM, the radio home of Bobcat Hockey, and worldwide online at NAHL.FASTHockey.com—the official web television partner of the North American Hockey League—with pregame coverage starting at 6:35pm.
Tickets are now on sale for the Cats’ run in the 2016 Robertson Cup Playoffs and are already going fast! Lock in yours for the entire playoff run by signing up for 2016-17 season tickets today.