By Kevin Scott
HELENA, Mont., March 5, 2014 — The Great Falls Americans offense was kept out of the net during the entire night by the top-ranked Helena Bighorns as the host team downed Great Falls 6-0 in the regular season road finale for the Americans on Wednesday night at the Helena Ice Arena. The Americans could not stop the Bighorns duo of Nick Okada (who finished with a hat trick) and Sam Bratten as they combined for the first five goals in the contest.
Helena’s Nick Okada scored one of his three goals of the night three minutes into the opening period in the final regular season match-up from these two rivals. Damon Hanson and Sebastian Hansson each received an assist on the power play scoring opportunity for the top-ranked AWHL franchise. Despite only one goal being scored in the first period, both teams combined for 23 shot attempts with Helena having 18 of them.
Sam Bratten added a goal to increase the top-ranked Bighorns lead to 2-0 with two minutes remaining in the second period. Kyle Baker and Theo Campe picked up their first assists in the game on the short-handed goal.
Unfortunately for the Americans, their defense allowed four third period goals with Nick Okada converting on a pair of power play goals in the first eight minutes of the final stanza with assistance from Dylan Webster, Corbin Belling, Logan Henne and Brian Skillicorn. After scoring his first goal for Helena in the middle period, Sam Bratten got the puck by Americans goaltender Erik Powell again to give the Bighorns a commanding 5-0 advantage over Great Falls. Dylan Webster tallied the final score of the evening with 9:08 remaining off the stick of Sebastian Hansson, who finished with 3 assists and Damon Hanson with two.
Helena goaltender Austin Brihn played the whole game and stopped all 16 shot attempts against the second-ranked Americans. Meanwhile, Erik Powell and Evan Hauser shared goaltending duties for the Americans and recorded a total of 50 saves. Helena showed why they are one of the better teams in junior hockey finishing with 56 shot attempts to only 16 for Great Falls.
Great Falls failed to convert on any of their four power play opportunities while the Bighorns took advantage of their power plays by scoring on half of them (3-for-7). Both teams combined for 13 infractions with 26 minutes of penalty time.
The Americans finish their final two games of the season at home on Thursday and Friday against Glacier and Bozeman. The four-team AWHL playoffs are now set with Helena, Great Falls, Gillette and Billings starting on Tuesday, March 11th.
NEXT CONTEST: The Americans finish out the regular season (before the playoffs start on March 11th) with two home games against Glacier on Thursday, March 6th and against Bozeman on Friday, March 7th.
| Period 1 | Period 2 | Period 3 | Final | |
| Great Falls | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Helena | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
First Period – 1, Helena, Nick Okada (Damon Hanson, Sebastian Hansson), 16:45.
Second Period –2, Helena, Sam Bratten (short-handed) (Kyle Baker, Theo Campe), 17:59.
Third Period – 3, Helena, Nick Okada (power play) (Dylan Webster, Sebastian Hansson), 1:40. 4, Helena, Nick Okada (power play) (Corbin Belling, Logan Henne), 7:48. 5, Helena, Sam Bratten (Kyle Baker), 8:50. 6, Helena, Dylan Webster (Sebastian Hansson, Damon Hanson), 10:52.
Shots on Goal – Great Falls 16, Helena 56.
Power-play Opportunities – Great Falls 0-for-4, Helena 3-for-7.
Attendance – 283
Box Score: Great Falls @ Helena
| Final | Helena Ice Arena Wed, Mar 05, 2014 7:35 PM MST |
 Great Falls 0 |
 Helena 6 |
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