Any loss it tough, but losing in overtime after being up by a pair heading into the third period is really tough.
The Grand Forks Border Bruins had a commanding 3-1 lead going into the third period on goals from Dexter Robinson, Michael Rand, Kyle Doak and Tucker Brown. Unfortunately, the team gave up goals to Addison Bazian at 7:34 and the killer by Keaton Gordon with only five seconds left in regulation to go to overtime.
Kyle Lohmann got the game winner for the Storm at 2:42 of OT.
“We changed up our defensive play quite a bit so we could play a bit more defensively and cut down our goals against,” said head coach and general manager Brad Snyder, “but it seemed like in doing that it seemed like we lost a lot of our offense. Even though we gave up a lot of shots they were low quality shots from the outside.”
Jacob Mullen was strong between the pipes for the Bruins stopping 54 out of 58 shots and getting the team’s game star.
“I thought our goaltender Jake Mullen played extremely well,” said Snyder. “The defence moved the puck pretty well but we need to create more offence off of that.”
Snyder said the loss was a tough one for the players.
“It was one of those things,” he said. “The kids deserved a better fate than what they got. It is what it is. The defence was a lot better so we’re quite happy with that. We’ll continue on from here.”
The Bruins sit in last place in the Neil Murdoch division with a 7-13-1 record for a total of 16 points. GF is 11 points back of Spokane for the final play-off spot.
Grand Forks has a tough run to the end of the month with five games in 10 days against inter-division rivals.
Tonight (Nov. 19) the Bruins travel to Nelson to take on the division leading Leafs. On the weekend, GF has a home and home with Castlegar. On Friday, the teams play in Grand Forks. Saturday, they face off in Castlegar.
Newton moves up to Junior A
The Bruins top scorer Max Newton has been moved up to junior after leading the team with 34 points in 21 games.
Newton was picked up by the Trail Smoke Eaters of the BCJHL where he will be reunited with former Bruins coach Nick Deschenes.
“He’s gone to Trail so we’ve lost our top scorer,” said Snyder, “but we’re a development team. We helped develop Max and now he’s moved on. We wish him the best with Trail. We hope he does as good a job with them as he did with us.”
