Brown Bears beat Jr. Blues 2-0; sweep weekend series (9/22)

(**Photo Credits go to Jeff Coons**)

On a night where the Springfield Junior Blues brought a much-improved effort, Gustaf Johansson provided a shutout between the pipes and the Kenai River Brown Bears beat Springfield 2-0 on Saturday night in a North American Hockey League contest to sweep the weekend series inside the Nelson Center.

Springfield, who was beat 5-1 on Friday night in there home opener, stepped up tonight and put on a good show of hockey for the home crowd and first-year head coach Tony Zasowski. While Friday night was a little dissappointing, whatever he said to the team before this game, really proved to be a difference maker in there overall effort.

Johannson, who held Springfield to just one goal on Friday night in the Junior Blues home opener, successfully saved all 52 shot attempts that came his way and helped the Brown Bears earn there second victory of the season in front of 722 fans in Springfield's second home game of the season.

Both teams were scoreless through the first twenty-minutes of the game, but that changed at the nine-minute mark of the second period when the Brown Bears' Lucas Kohls had a sick unassisted-slapshot hit the back of the net on Junior Blues' goalie Ryan Kellenberger. Kellenberger, who made his second start of the season, saved 18-of-20 shots on the night but had his record on the season fall to 0-2-0. In his first start of the season against Wenatchee he allowed six goals on thirty shots in the teams' 6-4 loss.

The Junior Blues were vicious with the scoring chances as they outshot the Brown Bears 52-to-20 on the night, but Johannson was basically a brick wall in between the pipes for the second night in a row.

In a 1-0 contest at the thirteen-minute mark of the third and final period, Chris Nuth found a hole in between the pipes as he was assisted by both Brad LeLievre and Dylan Meier as the goal took the air out of the Springfield crowd.

Unlike Friday night, Springfield had a lot of scoring chances and provided a lot of hope for the future; and even the present. Team captain Mike Fazio had eight shot-attempts on goal; while Brett Skibba had seven shots on Johannson himself.

Neither team scored on the man-advantage tonight as the Junior Blues went 0-for-5 and the Brown Bears went 0-for-3 on powerplay opportunities.

The Junior Blues fell to 1-4-1 (3 points) on the season following this lost, while Kenai River improved there overall record to 2-2-2 (6 points). The Junior Blues will be back inside the Nelson Center next Friday and Saturday night as they host Fairbanks while the Brown Bears will be on the road again against Janesville. Both games next weekend for the Junior Blues will be at 7:05 p.m. once again.