The River Falls Wildcats were defeated by the Eau Claire Memorial Old Abes by a score of 5-0 at Wildcat Centre in River Falls on Thursday night. It was not a clean night of hockey for the Wildcats as a string of penalties led to five unanswered power play goals by Eau Claire Memorial.

An early penalty by the Wildcats for holding gave the Abes a power play, but they were unable to capitalize as River Falls kept the puck in Eau Claire’s d-zone for the majority of the 2:00. Unfortunately, a minute later, the home team had another guy in the box for tripping. That’s when the Abes really started pressing the goal.

The Wildcat defense was holding, but then it happened again. With one guy already in the box, River Falls got yet another penalty, this time for high sticking. Thus, with a two-player advantage, Eau Claire scored almost immediately with just under 11:00 to play in the first period.

Things tightened up for the Wildcats, although they struggled to get a rhythm going. Towards the end of the period, the Abes incurred a penalty giving them a chance to tie things up, but to no avail. They would go into the break down 1-0.

It wasn’t a great period all the way around for River Falls as the penalties led to them being outshot by Memorial 12-3 and losing the faceoff battle by a large margin.

The second period seemed to be a continuation of the previous one with the Abes outshooting the Wildcats early on. However, by midperiod that momentum had shifted back towards being even, and what resulted was all out chaos.

Players were hitting the ice right and left, multiple sticks were shattered and strewn across the ice and everywhere the puck went was a battle for possession with both teams pressing hard and fast.

The Wildcats began winning faceoffs and getting more shots on goal, but by the end, things started to swing back in Memorial’s favor. This momentum shift towards the Abes culminated in a Wildcat penalty for tripping that resulted in an Eau Claire power play goal to take a 2-0 lead with just over 1:00 remaining in the period.

After a strong middle of the period, the Wildcats tightened up the faceoff margin and limited the Abes’ shots on goal to just nine. Unfortunately, they only got off three of their own in what amounted to a defense laden 18:00 of play.

The third period started with River Falls coming out shooting hot, taking the first five shots on goal until things got a little chippy at the net resulting in multiple incidental roughing calls and a Wildcat player in the penalty box for slashing. After just 0:23 of the subsequent power play, the Abes scored their third goal of the game.

The Wildcats just couldn’t seem to get out of their own way and stop visiting the penalty box, and Eau Claire just kept capitalizing. A roughing call against River Falls resulted in yet another power play and a fourth unanswered goal by the Old Abes to make it 4-0 with 10:30 remaining in regulation.

At the 6:32 mark, the home team collected another pair of penalties, one for roughing and one for unsportsmanlike conduct, bringing the penalty total to nine on the night and giving the Abes another big power play advantage with the Wildcats down by two skaters. The River Falls defense held for all but the final 0:19 before they were to come back to full strength. Unfortunately, that’s when Eau Claire put in their fifth goal on the shorthanded Wildcats.

Memorial incurred back-to-back penalties with just under 1:00 to go, resulting in a lot of fighting for the puck in front of the Abes’ net. Ultimately though, the game would end with a final score of 5-0.

Even with all the penalties, the Wildcats had their best frame of the night in the final period, shooting almost even with Memorial and continuing their success from the second period in the faceoff department. It didn’t result in any scoring, but there’s something to be said for the moral victory and the possibility of carrying that momentum into next week.

Head Coach Cam Wilken says that he likes the way they played tonight minus their penalty kill performance, which is where the defense works to not give the opponent opportunities while they are shorthanded. He says his hopes are high for the playoffs too, where River Falls will face a full complement of Division 2 teams rather than the 50/50 mix of D1 and D2 programs that they face in the Big Rivers.

“The kill was not perfect, and we made a couple mistakes, but if you go back and look, for the large part of it, I thought our chances five on five were better than theirs. That's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes,” Wilken said. “We beat everybody at the top except for Menomonie, and they got us in overtime. If you look at our opponents, we've got a better record against them than they have, so I think that we're the one seed. Maybe we're two or whatever, but we’ll for sure have one home game in the playoffs, probably two.”

The Wildcats have just five more games before playoffs, and Wilken says he likes their chances for a winning record down that stretch. When the regular season comes to an end, the playoffs get seeded by record via a seeding meeting that is held by all participating coaches in the section. That’s when final positions will be determined, and River Falls will know for sure if they’ll get that lucrative set of two home games to start the playoffs.

Of those five remaining Big Rivers games before the postseason, only one of those will come at home. That game will be played on Thursday, Feb. 1 when they will host Rice Lake.

Next up for the Wildcats is a road game against conference rival New Richmond Tigers on Tuesday. The puck drops for that game at 7 p.m.