New Golden Rocket forward and former Grand Forks Border Bruins captain Jacob Bergeron returned to town and had a four-point night in what would be a 10-1 Bruins’ loss.
Bergeron, along with former Border Bruins goalie Cole Buckley, had requested trades recently, with Bergeron going to the Golden and Buckley to the Osoyoos Coyotes.
While Bergeron wouldn’t go into detail of why he requested the trade, he was happy with his two-goal, two-assist performance.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve got a couple of wins,” Bergeron said after the game.
“I thought I played alright; I had a couple of sloppy plays but for the most part it was pretty good. I had a bunch of scoring chances.”
The home team once again fell behind the eight ball early, seeing Golden build a 4-0 lead in the opening stanza while only managing five shots on net but did finish the night with a respectable 30 shots on net.
Interim head coach Matt Zamec said that while the team allowed four goals in the first period, he said that the score was not indicative of how the team played.
“I thought we came out pretty well; it was a tough first period but I don’t think the shots really reflected the effort out there,” Zamec said.
“I thought we were battling pretty hard.
We weren’t getting the shots and they were getting a lot of shots.”
Zamec said that the Rockets capitalized on the Border Bruins’ mistakes.
“It wasn’t that lopsided a period, it wasn’t that lopsided a game; I think that the boys deserved better than they got,” he said.
As for goaltending, Border Bruins’ backstop Jeremy Mandoli finished the night making 40 saves on 50 shots.
Zamec said he was undecided about the goaltending situation going forward and there would be some decisions to make regarding this in the coming weeks.
“Neither one of the two guys (Mandoli and backup Nathan Nicolson) is playing badly but neither one of them is stepping up and carrying the load like I was hoping they would,” Zamec explained, adding that he was open to bringing in another goalie if necessary.
“Obviously, I want to give these guys a fair chance. They’ve been here all along and I’m just waiting for one of them to grab it and neither one of them is.”
Grand Forks forward Mitchell Nishimura started the game but left after the first period – Zamec said that Nishimura was been having problems with a recurring ankle injury.
The Border Bruins play a pair of games on the road this week, on Friday against the Princeton Posse and Saturday at Osoyoos Sun Bowl against the Coyotes.