NAHL Central showdown


By
February 5, 2015

Two teams battling for the fourth-and-final playoff spot in the Central Division of the North American Hockey League will face off on Friday night.

Brookings Blizzard has moved to within two points of fourth-place Aberdeen and will play host to the Wings on Friday.

Brookings, with 38 points from a record of 15-19-8, has two games in hand on Aberdeen. The Wings have 40 points from a mark of 19-23-2.

Both teams have been riding rookie goalies of late.

Brookings features one of the youngest players in the entire 24-team NAHL in 1998 birth-year goalie Ryan Kubic. The Manitoba-born Kubic — who is a top prospect of the Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League — has a 7-6-5 record to go with a 2.22 goals-against-average and .921 save percentage with the NAHL Blizzard.

In Aberdeen, Andrew Shortridge has supplanted veteran Chad Catt as the Wings no. 1 goalie. Shortridge, who has a Division 1, National Collegiate Athletic Association commitment to play for the Quinnipiac University Bobcats, has an 11-10-1 record with a 2.57 GAA and .912 save percentage.

Of note, Michigan Soo native Francis Anzalone is Aberdeen’s rookie head coach. And Brookings is coached by the veteran Dan Daikawa, who guided the erstwhile Jamestown Ironmen into the NAHL’s Robertson Cup, championship tournament in 2013.


What you think about “NAHL Central showdown”

  1. What is intresting is that Aberdeen have had 3 Goalies in 3 yrs get NCAA commits ….. before Shortridge were Nagelvort and Dill.

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