Kari Gibb/MDN Minot Minotauros forward Cayden Casey skates with the puck against the Austin Bruins in NAHL divisional semifinal action last week - Casey and the Minotauros will face the Bismarck Bobcats in the best of five divisional final.

The Minot Minotauros have enjoyed some down time for the past week. They were able to sweep the Austin Bruins in three games for the best of five North American Hockey League (NAHL) divisional semifinals.

During that same span, the Bismarck Bobcats needed all five games to move past the Aberdeen Vikings in their divisional semifinal round with the last game on Monday, April 29, at home.

The two teams have met 11 times this year previous to today’s meeting. The Minotauros are 7-4 in the head-to-head matchups. In the wins, Minot has scored 24 goals and allowed 13 for Bismarck. In the losses, the Minotauros have scored 11 goals and allowed 29 for the Bobcats. The stats suggest that the odds are in favor of Minot, but when the Minotauros lose, they lose big.

Two of the 11 games were shootouts and one went to overtime. Minot won the overtime match on February 10 with a score of 2-1 while the teams split the shootouts. The most recent matchups were both wins going to the Bobcats 5-4 in the April 12 shootout finish and 5-2 in the regular season final game.

In the five games against the Vikings, Bismarck forward Tommy Cronin has three goals and four assists to lead the team. In the 11 games against Minot this season, Cronin was the goal leader with five in the meetings.

Behind Cronin in the five games with Aberdeen are defenseman Jake Peterson with five assists in the playoffs, forwards Evan Hunter and Patrick Johnson with one goal and four assists each and forward Tamas Toth who has three goals and two assists in the playoffs.

Peterson and Hunter each had a goal against the Minotauros in the 11 games, but Johnson and Toth added seven goals between the two in head to head play with Minot. Bismarck had 17 skaters score in the regular season matchups with Minot having five players score more than once.

In the three games Minot played against Austin, forwards Niklas Ketonen, Nicholas Sewecke and Ian Spencer each scored three goals and had two assists while Joel Lehtinen had two goals and three assists in the sweep.

In the 11 games played against the Bobcats in the regular season, Cayden Casey and Jack O’Hanisain each had four goals while Sewecke and Colby Bear added three goals apiece for the Minotauros. Minot had 16 skaters score in the 11 games with 11 of those players scoring multiple goals.

In the power play zone, Minot has had 53 instances with penalty time compared to only 44 called on Bismarck. In comparing the home and away games, Minot is 3-3 at home against Bismarck and 4-1 when traveling.