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Otter Boys End Regular Season with Tough 2-1 Loss at Hutchinson

By Craig Olson, 02/18/23, 3:15PM CST

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The Hutchinson Tigers broke a 1-1 tie with a late third period goal and then held off a furious Otter power play opportunity in the final few minutes of the game to take a 2-1 victory over Fergus Falls in the final regular season boys’ hockey game.

After a scoreless first period, Huchinson scored at 15:41 of the second period when senior captain Karsen Niska found the back of the net.  Thirty seconds later Kellen Stenstrom notched his 20th goal of the season on a rebound of a Shane Zierden shot to pull the Otters even.

At 11:23 of the third period, Emmett Reiter scored the go ahead goal with assists from Toren Miller and Nolan Reiter.

“We generated some offense late in the game and had some grade ‘A’ chances, but we just couldn’t get the puck in the net,” said Fergus Falls Head Coach Mike Donaghue.  “We went 0-for-6 on the power play and when you do that you don’t deserve to win.  We have to figure out a way to score goals.  We have scored three goals in our last three games and that isn’t going to cut it in the playoffs.  I thought we defended really well today.  Our exits were good out of our end zone.  Overall, this was a great game to prepare us for the post season.”

Shots were close to even and both goalies, Hunter Lien for Hutchinson and Ben Swanson for the Otters, were strong in their respective nets.

Fergus Falls is the number two seed in the Section 6A boys’ hockey playoffs.  They will host a quarterfinal round game on Tuesday against Prairie Center at the Community Arena at 7:00pm.