Mason City, IA- The North Iowa Bulls and Bismarck concluded their weekend series at the Mason City Arena with a physical matchup filled with fights, penalties, and chirps between the two teams. Ultimately, Bismarck emerged with a hard earned 2-0 win, but not before taking a plethora of hits from the Bulls.
The game’s lone goal on a goalie came in the first period when a recent arrival put the Bobcats in a lead they held for the rest of the game. Jake Peterson faced the Bulls four times this season as captain of the Springfield Jr. Blues, dropping three of the four games he played in this year against the Bulls. On Saturday night, his shot with only 3:53 left in the first period gave him his first goal and point as a Bobcat and put Bismarck in front.
That was the only puck to get through Connor Graham. The Fort Wayne, IN, native recorded 38 saves on 39 shots faced between the Bulls’ pipes to give the Bulls a chance to hang in the game.
Graham’s performance in net was a spearhead piece of a weekend in which the Bulls killed all six Bobcats’ power play opportunities. Combined with four successful penalty kill efforts on Friday night, the Bulls’ penalty kill was perfect on ten opposing power play attempts.
The other defining part of the night was an avalanche of penalties in the second period, most of them stemming from a dust-up in front of the Bulls bench that came 7:52 into the frame. By the end of the melee, seven players ended up in the penalty box between the teams. At game’s end, the teams combined for 22 infractions and 92 penalty minutes, with 13 penalties and 74 of those minutes coming in the second period brawl.
Ultimately, the Bulls could not get a puck through Stephen Peck, who recorded a 12 save shutout, the third shutout of his season. Landon Fandel ended the night with an empty netter to cap the scoring at 2-0.
The Bulls hit the road next weekend for two games against the Aberdeen Wings. Puck drops at the Odde Ice Center at 7:15 PM on both Friday February 9th and Saturday February 10th.