Muskie boys sweep pair

The teams may have been new but the scores were as familiar as ever as the Muskie boys’ hockey team won a pair of exhibition matches in Minnesota in their usual blowout fashion.
The black-and-gold beat the Lafayette Eagles 7-1 in Red Lake Falls on Friday, followed by a 5-0 shutout over the Kittson Central Wolfpack in Hallock on Saturday.
“Overall, I think they did a pretty decent job. We were better in our own zone, which we were working on, and that was good to see,” Muskie head coach Shane Bliss said.
“It’s nice to play those Minnesota high school teams,” he added. “Minnesota players grow up to play high school hockey . . . their only focus is high school, so you always get the best of what they got.”
The Muskies certainly did not see the best of Minnesota high school hockey last weekend, though. Bliss admitted Lafayette was a bit weak in goal while Kittson was short a number of regular players who were attending a national robotics competition.
The Muskies evened things a little with a few roster quibbles of their own—namely having three defencemen sit the weekend out.
Matt McLellan led the Muskie scoring attack with a pair of goals in each game, along with an assist against the Eagles.
McLellan, who hadn’t been a major scoring factor yet this season, said he was glad to be back on the board.
“I played good, I think way better than all year,” he noted. “I finally came out of my slump.”
Bliss said the burly forward might have his rivals to thank. Because of an equipment slip-up, McLellan borrowed gloves from the Minnesota teams before each game.
“Maybe he got the scoring touch from these American gloves, I don’t know,” Bliss joked.
McLellan was quick to shift responsibility for the win to the rest of his team.
He called David Moen’s goaltending in the two games “superb,” and praised the team’s scoring depth, which saw points spread throughout the roster instead of piled upon one line, as has been the case in a number of games this season.
“All our lines came together finally,” McLellan noted. “One night it’ll be one line, one night it’ll be another. This time it was all lines firing.
“That’s something we were looking for all year. We finally got it,” he added.
The Muskies remain on a bit of a break from NorWOSSA play, having faced Ely here last night before heading to a tournament in Brandon, Man. this coming weekend.
Bliss said the Muskies are in for a challenge, but having won the Brandon tournament in 2005, they should be up for the fight.
“That’s a long tournament, good tournament, great competition out there,” he remarked. “We’ll have to be playing our best . . . hopefully we’ll still be playing Sunday afternoon.”
Kittson, meanwhile, will get a chance to avenge their shutout loss with a full roster when the Muskies host the Wolfpack next Saturday (Dec. 15).