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Hancock forward Kirby Storm prepares to shoot the puck during the first period of a game against Jeffers Tuesday at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton. (Daver Karnosky\/Daily Mining Gazette)<\/p>\n
HOUGHTON \u2014 The Hancock Bulldogs have been working towards this all season. Tuesday night, the things they practice came to fruition in a 5-4 win over the Jeffers Jets at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena. Hancock scored four power play goals en route to the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, my God, this is a big-time win right now,\u201d said Bulldogs coach Joe Burcar. \u201cThat\u2019s a team that got to the Final Four last year. They\u2019re first in the conference right now. <\/p>\n
\u201cA great opponent, but this is our third time playing them. They beat us the first two. So, there\u2019s a lot of great things that we did tonight and it\u2019s a confidence builder.\u201d<\/p>\n
The game was tied at 2-2 at the start of the third period. Sophomore forward Connor Helminen changed that just 55 seconds in when his backhand from the slot slid past Jeffers co-captain Kasen Helminen\u2019s left leg.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been in this situation so many times as a young team,\u201d Burcar said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been tied, or we\u2019ve been ahead by one or down by one. But, it\u2019s been tight going into the third. What we see from a coaching staff is just that, we\u2019ve been building. We\u2019ve been building. We\u2019ve been building. <\/p>\n
\u201cWas nice to see the goal early, because I think the stuff we\u2019ve been working on, and they\u2019ve been executing in games, it paid off. I think that was just a major boost not only to Connor scoring, but the bench was up and excited. So, it\u2019s a reward. What we talk about, what we work on as a group, and execution. It went well tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jets coach Aaron Helminen lamented the way his team played throughout the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t have the jump in our step,\u201d he said. \u201cWe seemed like we really fought ourselves, fought the puck all night. Then, of course, laziness results in penalties, and laziness on the penalty kill results in goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs (10-6-2 overall) already had two power play goals in the game before the third period, so when junior forward Hudsen Heinonen was whistled for a major penalty, they had a chance to add to that total.<\/p>\n
It took less than a minute for the Bulldogs to strike. Alternate captain Kirby Storm scored on a wrist shot from the slot over Kasen Helminen\u2019s glove at 6:24. Then, 2:04 later, he scored a second goal from a very similar spot. <\/p>\n
Storm\u2019s ninth goal of the season put the Bulldogs up 5-2 at that point. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s definitely got a nose for the puck, and we put him in every key situation,\u201d said Burcar. \u201cHe plays heavy minutes for us. He\u2019s one of our leaders. He\u2019s a senior. He\u2019s a captain. Not that you want to say you expect that from him, but he\u2019s a guy that, from a coaching standpoint, getting to know him this year as a first year coach with him, he can do a lot of good things. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe does a lot of great things for us. It\u2019s another moment where, from a coaching standpoint, we\u2019re really happy to see him be rewarded. That\u2019s probably where a lot of those situations happen tonight, where the team was rewarded by one.\u201d<\/p>\n
As good as things felt for the Bulldogs at that point, however, the Jets had other plans. <\/p>\n
Alternate captain Blake Heltunen found the net from the right point at 11:16 to cut the lead to 5-3. The goal was his fifth of the season.<\/p>\n
Then, sophomore forward Max Nordstrom buried a rebound for his second goal of the night, and 13th of the year, from the left circle. He got the puck from a rebound off a shot from senior defenseman Griffin Heinonen.<\/p>\n
Down 5-4, the Jets poured on the pressure, getting multiple good scoring chances. They pulled Kasen Helminen with 92 seconds remaining, and kept the pressure on, but could not find the equalizer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just didn\u2019t happen,\u201d said Aaron Helminen. \u201cWe just got down too many, and just not enough at the end. Credit Adam (Mikkola) in net, (he) played really well. We had a hard time getting them by him tonight. They packed it in nice at the end and got themselves a win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikkola finished the night with 28 saves to earn the win, but the ones in the final minutes were the biggest.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe absolutely (shut the door),\u201d Burcar said. \u201cCredit to Jeffers, they\u2019re a high-scoring offensive team. From a coaching standpoint, we kept on looking at the clock, and it\u2019s 5-2, and all of a sudden, it\u2019s 5-4, and there\u2019s still a lot of time on the clock yet against an offensive team like that. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut, that was good for Adam, another senior. He\u2019s had some challenging games, but he really, really answered the bell tonight. He changed his game tonight. He shut it down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Jets (15-6-1) got on the board first when Nordstrom scored his first goal of the night while his team was on the power play at 16:45. Co-captain Brogan Turner got the initial shot off before Nordstrom knocked the rebound home.<\/p>\n
In the second period, the Bulldogs earned a two-man advantage when Turner and sophomore defenseman Reese Laitala were whistled 1:27 apart for hooking and tripping, respectively.<\/p>\n
Junior forward Brady Axford struck first during the ensuing 5-on-3 when he tipped a shot from sophomore defenseman Jax Pierner into the net at 5:34. The goal was Axford\u2019s 11th of the season.<\/p>\n
Then sophomore forward Nolan Hanner beat Kasen Helminen on the one-man advantage at 6:13 with a backhand. The goal was Hanner\u2019s eighth of the season.<\/p>\n
Turner evened the game at 2-2 when he batted a rebound past Mikkola at 8:50.<\/p>\n
Kasen Helminen made 15 saves in the loss for the Jets.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The Jets are back in action Friday when they host Grandville at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena at 7 p.m. The Bulldogs will face Calumet Saturday at 1 p.m. at the HoCo Arena.<\/p>\n
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Jeffers forward Max Nordstrom (left), celebrates a power play goal with teammates Blake Heltunen (5), Easton Therrian, and Brogan Turner (9) during the first period of a game against Hancock Tuesday at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton. (Daver Karnosky\/Daily Mining Gazette)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hancock forward Kirby Storm prepares to shoot the puck during the first period of a game against Jeffers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[52499,52498,5,1246],"class_list":{"0":"post-421333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-bulldogs-hockey-powers-its-way-to-win-over-jets","9":"tag-bulldogs-hockey-powers-its-way-to-win-over-jetssports","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-local-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115937725458517444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}