The Niverville Nighthawks couldn’t overcome a defensive struggle at home on Friday night, falling 1–0 to the Northern Manitoba Blizzard. With the loss, the Nighthawks stay in third place in the MJHL’s East Division with a record of 5–3–0.
It was a closely checked game the whole way through, and in the process, despite the loss, Niverville proved they could play with the league’s best. The Blizzard are currently ranked number one in the league.
After a scoreless first two periods, Northern Manitoba got on the board early in the third. The Nighthawks pushed hard but were unable to score the tying goal.
Niverville’s Raiden LeGall stopped 13 shots in goal for the loss.
The Nighthawks outshot the Blizzard by a 21–14 margin.
“It was a very close game all the way through,” says Nighthawks head coach Dwight Hirst. “It was a playoff type game that was tightly contested by both clubs. Defensively, I thought we were good tonight, but we got to score to have a chance and that’s the bottom line.”
The Nighthawks are back in action with a road game tonight against the Steinbach Pistons. The puck drops at 7:00 p.m.
“We need to get pucks at the net and go to the hard areas for second chance opportunities,” says Hirst. “We generated opportunities to get to those areas and didn’t take that step into that space. We just need to develop that layer of attack and we’ll be okay going forward.”
