Crookston Pirate Boys Hockey shuts out Grafton for 7th win

The Crookston Pirate Boys Hockey team had a tremendous game from goalie Teegyn Johnson, and four different players scored to beat the Grafton Spoilers 4-0 in Thief River Falls at the Ralph Englestad Arena. THe Pirates got Crookston Coach Josh Hardy the win for his 37th birthday.

FIRST PERIOD
Crookston came out strong and had the first six shots on goal. A few of the shots were high quality scoring chances, but came up empty. Grafton answered with the next three shots on goal and play was pretty even the rest of the way. Crookston had waves of offense and one of those waves came with about seven minutes left in the period, when Greyson Ecker got a pass in front of the net and rifled a shot on goal. The puck hit the post and it was still scoreless after 10 minutes of play. Crookston had another surge late in the period, as Jay Reese slid a nice pass in front of the net to Garrett Fischer, who was streaking towards the net, and he slapped the puck into an opening on the right side of the net to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead with 1:13 remaining.
Crookston took the 1-0 lead into the first intermission while outshooting Grafton 13-9.

SECOND PERIOD
Crookston had another strong start to a period as they scored 40 seconds in. Gavin Aakhus had the puck in the corner and skated towards the net and slid a pass to Liam Larson who knocked the puck into the right side of the net for a quick 2-0 lead. Crookston drew a penalty and went on the power play for the second time in the game. It didn’t take long for Crookston to take advantage of the extra man as Jay Reese slid a pass to Greyson Ecker in between the circles and he rifled a shot by the goalie to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead 3:16 into the period.
Grafton picked up their play the rest of the period and had a total of 20 shots on goal over the final 13 minutes, but Crookston goalie Teegyn Johnson was outstanding as he stopped everything, including a few high-quality scoring chances and Crookston took a 3-0 lead into the second intermission.

THIRD PERIOD
The third period was an even period throughout. Crookston’s Fischer had a slap shot that hit the post four minutes into the period. Grafton had the puck all alone in front of the Pirate net and Crookston’s Johnson went down and made a big kick save to keep the shutout going with 11 minutes left in the period.
Crookston added an insurance goal with less than six minutes left in the game when Garrett Fischer passed to Jay Reese who rifled a shot over the shoulder of the Grafton goalie’s shoulder and into the net for a 4-0 lead. Grafton didn’t go down without trying to ruin the Pirate shutout as they had several high-quality scoring chances only to have the Pirate’s Johnson stop the shots and Crookston held on for a 4-0 victory and the first shutout for Johnson.

Crookston improves to 7-1-1 on the year and will take on Tartan on Saturday at Noon. You can hear the game on KROX Radio. Grafton drops to 2-4 on the year and will take on Thief RIver Falls on Saturday.