Last weekend at Riverside Arena in Austin, the Minot Minotauros opened their 2025 Robertson Cup Playoff run with a sweep over the Austin Bruins en route to taking a commanding two-game series back home to Maysa Arena.

The two wins included a 3-1 victory on Friday, April 18, in the series opener, followed by a thrilling OT win on Saturday night to put the Tauros on the brink of a first-round series win.

The Tauros return home this weekend to the Pepsi Rink with an opportunity to sweep the Bruins for the second consecutive year in the opening round of the postseason. The Tauros will be tasked with taking down a Bruins team that found success inside the Tauros’ home building during the regular season with a 3-1 road record on the Pepsi Rink.

On the other side of the Central Division bracket, the lower-seeded Aberdeen Wings notched two back-to-back overtime wins on the road to put the top-seeded Bismarck Bobcats in danger of elimination heading down to the Odde Ice Center.

The two wins for the Wings extended a winning streak for the Wings that has now reached 10 consecutive wins dating back over a calendar year to March. Through the regular season, the Wings held a 2-2 record on home ice against the Bobcats.

The two wins for the Tauros this past weekend in Austin have flipped home-ice as Minot will have two opportunities to close out the series in front of their home fans this upcoming weekend.

Jesse Juhola was the hero in the overtime session in game two netting the overtime goal just 44 seconds into the extra period to send Minot back to the Magic City with a commanding two-game advantage.

Three Tauros notched a multi-point weekend with John Small, Braeden Jockims, and Adam Mahler all having two points on the weekend. Small was responsible for the game-winning goal on Friday night en route to the 3-1 win.

Perhaps having the best weekend was second-year Tauros’ netminder Lukas Swedin. Swedin was in net for both of the wins in Austin making a combined 83 saves while allowing just two goals in the two wins.

As the Tauros return to home ice this weekend, they’ll look to improve upon a 19-10 regular season record at Maysa Arena.

The Bruins will hit the road up to Minot needing three straight wins against the Tauros in order to avoid elimination and move on in the playoffs. The two losses on home ice at Riverside Arena broke up a four-game winning streak that Austin carried into the postseason.

Despite the two losses, the Bruins were able to outshoot the Tauros on the weekend 85-69 with 48 of those shots coming in Saturday night’s overtime loss.

The two goal-scorers this weekend for the Bruins were Ryan Lund & Zander Lipsett as Austin’s top line of Alex Laurenza, Luc Malkhassian, and EJ Paddington was held off the score sheet on both nights.

Between the pipes, the Bruins started both netminders Jack Solomon and Carl Axelsson over the weekend. Solomon finished saving 32 of 34 shots faced on Friday night while Axelsson finished with an identical line padding away 32 of 34 on Saturday night.

Despite both teams going 0 of 8 on the power play last weekend, special teams will likely be a factor in this weekend’s games.

In the season series, the Bruins hold the advantage on the power play going 9 of 38 through the ten games thus far. As for the Tauros, they’ve gone 7/41 against the Bruins, good for 17%.

As for the penalty kill, the Bruins hold the advantage through 61 games played with a division-best PK unit converting at 87.15%. As for the Tauros, they’re at an even 84% on the season.

Out of all the remaining playoff teams in the Central Division the Tauros average the most goals scored per game at 3.49.

Maysa Arena will play host to games three and game four (if necessary) this weekend. Both games are scheduled for a 7:35 p.m. puck drop.