The Minnesota Wilderness enter their final 10-game stretch of the regular season on a 3-game winning streak and on the heels of the season’s first two shutouts. The Wilderness did not allow a single goal last weekend in their road weekend series against the Janesville Jets, winning both games by the score of 4-0.
Minnesota (23-22-4) now takes its revamped defense to Eagle River, WI, where it will meet the 1st place Wisconsin Windigo in a two-game series this Friday and Saturday. It was against the Windigo when the current shutout run began on March 1. In that game in Cloquet, the Wilderness kept Wisconsin scoreless over the final 23:45 en route to a 4-1 win.
Since then, Minnesota has extended its time keeping opponents off the board to 143 minutes, 45 seconds. The Wilderness are on their longest streak of “protecting the zero” since Oct., 2023, when they had a shutout span of 160:25.
The Wilderness record for playing continuous shutout hockey is 315:31, going back to the 2013-14 season.
The Windigo (34-12-3) enter this weekend’s series coming off a home split with the Chippewa Steel on March 7-8. Wisconsin hammered the Steel 9-3 on game 1 before Chippewa countered with a 6-3 victory on Saturday.
These will mark the 11th and 12th meetings of the season between the Wilderness and Windigo. Wisconsin leads the season-series going 7-3 over the first ten games.
The Windigo finishes its home schedule for this season with this weekend’s contests. After these games vs. Minnesota, Wisconsin plays its final eight away from home.
The games March 14-15 will be at the Eagle River Sports Arena, with puck drop for both games set for 7 p.m.
Upcoming Wilderness birthdays: Valdemar Andersen: 3/14 (20); Olle Karlsson: 3/17 (20)
Media: NAHLTV.com
Midwest Division standings:
| Place | Team | Games Played | Points | This weekend’s opponent |
| 1x | Wisconsin | 49 | 71 | 2 games vs. Wilderness |
| 2 | Fairbanks | 48 | 64 | 2 games vs. Springfield |
| 3 | Anchorage | 48 | 63 | 2 games @ Kenai River |
| 4 | Chippewa | 48 | 54 | 2 games @ Janesville |
| 5 | Springfield | 49 | 51 | 3 games @ Fairbanks |
| 6 | Wilderness | 49 | 50 | 2 games @ Wisconsin |
| 7 | Kenai River | 50 | 47 | 2 games vs. Anchorage |
| 8 | Janesville | 49 | 34 | 2 games vs. Chippewa |
x = clinched playoff spot
Tale of the Tape:
| Team | GF | GA | PP | PK |
| Wilderness | 172 | 170 | 46 for 223 (20.6%) | 29 for 181 (84%) |
| Wisconsin | 192 | 129 | 28 for 167 (16.8%) | 23 for 206 (88.8%) |