Conner Roff shuts the door in Thief River Falls’ Hockey Day Minnesota win over Waseca

WARROAD, Minn. — Under the lights, senior Conner Roff shined the brightest on Thursday night as Thief River Falls earned a 6-2 win over Waseca in a boys matchup at Hockey Day Minnesota.

Roff stopped 24 shots as the Prowlers improved to 11-7-1. Junior Joe Kelly scored twice, notching first- and third-period goals.

“It’s really good,” Roff said of the win. “It’s not something you get to experience every day and I’m very happy to be able to be a part of it, and have these guys be a part of it with me too.”

Waseca couldn’t capitalize with a two-man advantage in the first period after Kelly’s opening goal. Sophomore Bennett Borgen made it 2-0 with a backdoor feed.

“I thought we made some good scoring chances, quality scoring chances,” Thief River Falls head coach Tim Bergland said. “I thought you know, we had some nice ones, good looks. I liked how we played, like in these types of games there’s a lot of distractions out there. And obviously getting the lead was nice and Conner shut the door when he had to.”

Senior Cooper Anderson put the Prowlers up 3-0 with an in-tight goal at 6:19 of the second period. Senior Brayden Spears extended the lead to 4-0 before Kelly and junior Paul Anderson scored in the final period.

Roff said he tracked the puck well, except for one of the corners.

“Sometimes when it got up into the stands or like when they flipped the puck in,” said Roff, who had two full-game shutouts coming into the game. “Like it blends right into the sky so you can’t really see the puck. But no, I felt like I could track the puck pretty well and actually more than I thought I was going to be able to.”

Junior Noah Gonzales relieved Roff and immediately gave up a goal to Waseca freshman Griffin Storey.

“It was just crazy, like the whole thing,” Storey said. “It was open, it was fast and it was bright.”

It was the second time Bergland coached in a Hockey Day Minnesota game and was happy for his team’s win.

“It’s very exciting for the for the guys to be part of Hockey Day,” Bergland said. “I mean I’ve been able to do it as a coach about six, seven years ago. But these guys, you know, it doesn’t happen all that often. So it was a great opportunity to play at night and such a nice setup, nice weather and I really couldn’t ask for anything more and to get the win too of course.”