Entering their final rivalry game of the 2024-25 NA3HL regular season on Friday in Great Falls, the #3 Great Falls Americans (23-13-4-2) and the top-ranked Helena Bighorns (35-3-1-1) have had seven encounters (2-3-1-1).
The latest meeting occurred on Saturday, February 1st in a thrilling game at the Great Falls Ice Plex that ended in a shootout where Helena topped Great Falls, 4-3. John Lang, Fisher Hannesson, and Aiden Kennedy scored all three goals to give the Americans a 3-1 lead before the second intermission. Jason Hammett scored the lone first period score for the Bighorns Helena’s Chase Berg and Trey Pareja scored two goals in the third frame to send it to a scoreless five-minute overtime and to a shootout. Jason Hammett of the Bighorns outscored Great Falls, 1-0 in the shootout for the victory by the road team. Ty O’Bey, John Lang and Aiden Kennedy came up empty for the Americans. Tyler Miller added 38 saves in Helena’s win while newcomer Isaiah Paulnock stopped 47 of 50 shots for the host squad.
The Americans under head coach Greg Sears was looking to get their third win over one of the top teams in the North American 3 Hockey League at home on Friday night. Would their offense be able to stop the Bighorns offensive attack?
The #3 Great Falls Americans let their 2-1 slip away as the top-ranked Helena Bighorns tied the game with 1:57 remaining to force an overtime where the visitors scored 98 seconds into the extra period to claim a 3-2 win at the Great Falls Ice Plex on Friday evening.
The hockey rivals played hard throughout the first stanza, but no pucks would light up the lamp. The Bighorns attempted 13 of the 21 total shots.
Great Falls scored first in the second period and held a 2-1 advantage after forty minutes. Aiden Kennedy recorded his 21st goal during the first three minutes. Gavin Denis and Chase Hapka assisted on the power play score by the home team. Six minutes after Kennedy’s lamplighter, Jurzy Allard buried his third goal with an assist by Garren Narvaez and Zac Orwig acquired his 31st assist of the year. Helena’s offense prevented a shutout as Austin Tyler scored off the skate of Great Falls netminder Kaden Rhyder to cut the Bighorns deficit in half. The Americans trailed in the shots-on-goal category, 16-10.
Great Falls continued to lead 2-1 for the first eighteen minutes before Bighorns defenseman Hunter Coulombe’s slapshot set up by Finn Theriault and Jason Hammett evened the contest at 2-2 to force overtime.
In the extra frame, Austin Tyler’s pass to Caden Fenstein for the score over Great Falls netminder Kaden Rhyder gave the Bighorns their second overtime victory over Great Falls. On January 10th, Helena won 5-4 in overtime.
The top-ranked team in the Frontier Division outshot the #3 Americans in each of the three regulation periods and overtime. Helena accounted for 24 of their 56 in the third period. Great Falls finished with 23 with 18 occurring before the third period.
Both clubs combined for nine infractions that resulted in 60 minutes spent in the sin bin. Aiden Kennedy’s second period goal was the only goal scored by either team on a power play opportunity.
Branson Appelman ran his record to 10-1-0-0 in his twelfth appearance in the net for Helena. Appelman stopped 21 of 23 shots sent his way by the Americans offense. Kaden Rhyder (19-9-2-0) finished the regular season against the Bighorns with a 2-2-2-0 record and accumulated 53 saves in the loss.
Great Falls picked up one point for the overtime loss and combined with #4 Sheridan’s loss to the #7 Gillette (WY) Wild moved Great Falls (temporarily) back to the third spot in the NA3HL’s Frontier Division as of Friday night.
FRONTIER DIVISION UPDATE: Bozeman’s Spencer Wilkinson provided key goals including one in the third period to send their game against the #6 Butte Irish to overtime and scored one of the two goals in the shootout to carry the #5 Bozeman Ice Dogs (23-15-1-1) to a 4-3 decision over the #6 Butte Irish (17-21-1-3) during Friday’s action at the Butte Community Ice Center in Butte, Montana. After each team scored once to open the first period, Butte scored two of the three goals for the 3-2 lead after the second period. Spencer Wilkinson added his 17th goal six minutes into the third period as the Ice Dogs held Butte scoreless in the third period. The five-minute overtime came and went without either team scoring. Bozeman won the shootout, 2-1 with Spencer Wilkinson and Tyler Klingbeil successfully scoring their one-on-one goals against Butte netminder Logan Hunter. Easton Langemo scored the lone goal for Butte in the shootout as he finished with two goals. Jack Ryan is now 6-6-0-0 as he posted 23 saves in 65 minutes of action for the winning team. Meanwhile, Logan Hunter (Butte) suffered his first shootout loss (2-4-0-1) by accruing 35 saves.
The #7 Gillette (WY) Wild’s Dante Hunziker scored one goal in each period for his first hat trick of the season as the Wild (18-23-1-0) pulled out a 4-2 regulation victory over the #4 Sheridan (WY) Hawks (24-13-2-1) in Gillette’s home arena on Friday. Elijah Farris scored in the first and second periods for the Hawks. Wylen Cambensy added his third win to his resume (3-6-0-0) for Gillette. He allowed two goals before the second intermission and finished with 32 saves. TJ Wonnacott (9-3-2-1) had 33 saves for the Hawks. The loss for Sheridan moved them down a spot to fourth in the NA3HL Frontier Division standings.
The #2 Badlands (SD) Sabres (23-13-4-3) and the #8 Yellowstone (WY) Hawks (1-39-1-0) are idle this weekend and will return to action next week.
