Glacier gets a point in Helena

For a young team like the Glacier Nationals of the North American Tier 3 Hockey League, every game is part of the learning process. Even while losing a pair of close games to two of the top teams in the Frontier Division, the Nationals have proven they are ready and able to compete with any team on their schedule.

Glacier played the first of back-to-back games at home Friday night inside the Havre Ice Dome and were narrowly defeated by the Billings Bulls by a score of 5-3.

The night started off on the right foot for the Nationals as they grabbed an early 1-0 lead, when Tommy Kaddatz scored with 14:04 left in the first period. Yet, the Bulls would answer with 9:46 to go in the first on a power play goal by Trent Carter to even the score.

Then, in the second period, the Bulls took their first lead of the game on another power play goal, this time coming from Alex Lundstrom with 8:43 left in the second period to take a 2-1 lead. The score would stay that way until the final minutes of the period, when Ian Eshbaugh of Billings found the net with 1:07 left in the second to put the Bulls up 3-1 going into the final stanza.

Despite being down two goals, the Nationals refused to go down without a fight and 13:27 left in the game, they got back within one on a Wyatt Fretheim goal that made the score 3-2 in favor of Billings.

Less than two minutes later, Jarod Ackerman scored an unassisted goal on a breakaway and suddenly with 11:29 to go in the game, the scored was tied at 3-3.

During the next few minutes of play, each team was furiously trying to get the go-ahead goal and finally with 4:33 left in the game, Billings got it. Ian Wiljanen scored to put the Bulls ahead 4-3.

Then, late in the game following a pair of penalties on the Nationals, the Bulls scored another power goal with 13 seconds left in the game as T.J. Theodosopoulos found the back of the net to seal the win for Billings.

“I thought we showed a lot of heart by coming back and playing really well in the third period,” Nationals head coach Jeff Heimel said. “They scored four goals from the same spot so we had some breakdowns that we need to fix. Things like that can happen when you have a young team. But, I was really impressed with how we battled back but at the end I think our youth showed. But we need to focus on the positives and the positive is that we played toe-to-toe with one of the top teams in the league.”

After losing to Billings, the Nationals went on the road to take on the Helena Bighorns, who dominated the Nationals 10-0 in the season opener for both teams Sept. 19. But Saturday, there would be no such blowout, as Glacier hung tough throughout and ended up losing a 3-2 heartbreaker in overtime.

Early on, it looked like Helena would win with ease again as they scored just 7:42 into the game on a goal by Kendall Bolen-Porter to go ahead 1-0 with 12:18 left in the first.

But the Nationals defense stood strong until the second period when Helena found the back of the net for a second time, this time on a goal by Brian Skillicorn to give the Bighorns a 2-0 heading into the third period.

After being held scoreless for two and a half periods, the Nationals finally got on the board when Tyler McMahon scored a goal that was assisted by Fretheim and Brendan Jester to trim the Helena lead to 2-1 with 9:34 left in regulation.

Then, with just 55 seconds left, Karson Frisk scored the equalizer thanks to assists by McMahon and Jester to tie the score and send the game into overtime.

With less than two minutes before the overtime period ended, the Bighorns got the game-winning goal by Skillicorn to get the hard fought 3-2 win over Glacier.

Mac Alboreo got the win in net for Helena by stopping 18 of 20 shots, while Nolan Slager got the loss for Glacier, despite stopping 25 of the 28 shots that came his way.

Even though they ended up losing, because it was a regulation tie, the Nationals got a much-needed point to move up in the Frontier standings. They are currently 1-6-1 on the season and tied for fifth in the Frontier.

“To me, it’s like and night from when I first got here,” Said Heimel talking of the Nationals improvement. “It’s hard to make a young team understand they need to play hard for 60 minutes. Right now we are playing about 40 good minutes and that other 20 minutes is killing us. But most of that just comes from being a young team.”

The Nationals will see the Bulls again this week, in fact they will see them twice, as the two teams will play back-to-back games in Billings on Friday and Saturday night.