Pair of wins opens 2012 action

The Yellowstone Quake junior hockey team returned to action over the weekend with a two-game sweep of the expansion Glacier Nationals. The Quake scored a 5-0 shutout on Friday night before following with a 5-4 overtime win on Saturday.

Goaltender Dom DeGuiseppi steered away 38 shots by the Nationals to produce his second shutout of the season on Friday.

Zachary Tuchklaper produced the only goal the Quake would need at the 14:35 mark of the first period off a feed from Michael O’Meara. Three minutes later, O’Meara was the one on the receiving end as he slapped home a Drew Parus assist to make it 2-0 in favor of the Quake.

Parus picked up another assist as he combined with Nathan Morris to deliver the puck to Matthew Schulz for Yellowstone’s third goal fo the first period.

The 3-0 lead remained on the scoreboard into the final period. Rusty Sandry added a goal with an assist from Morris and Michael Pijanowski. Derek Scott capped the scoring with an unassisted goal with 15 seconds remaining.

On Saturday, Glacier scored a trio of power play goals to create some nervous moments for Quake fans. The Nationals scored twice in the game’s first nine minutes to produce a 2-0 lead.

The Quake answered as Schulz scored late in the first period, then added a second goal just 77 seconds after action resumed following the first intermission. The Nationals regained the lead four minutes later on a power play goal, then extended their advantage to 4-2 with less than 12 minutes remaining on yet another power play.

The Nationals’ 4-2 lead endured on the scoreboard until Drew Parus scored with 1:34 to play. With time running down, the Quake pulled its goaltender in favor of an extra attacker. That move enabled Parus to get free against an overloaded Nationals’ defense for the game-tying goal with 60 seconds to play and force overtime.

Andreas Olofsson took a feed from O’Meara and Sandry and beat the Nationals’ goalie at the 3:40 mark of overtime to complete the weekend sweep for the Quake.

With the wins, the Quake climbed back into a third-place tie with Vancouver in the NORPAC standings. Vancouver had momentarily relegated the Quake to fourth in the standings by virtue of games over the holidays.

The Quake host Seattle for a three-game series, starting on Friday. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday with a 4 p.m. afternoon start to Sunday’s action.