The Twin City Thunder opened their National Collegiate Development Conference season with a goalie duel.

Unfortunately for the Thunder, they were on the wrong side of a 2-0 decision to the Junior Bruins in Marlborough, Massachusetts on Saturday afternoon. Bruins goalie Colin Winn made 30 saves while the Thunder’s Brody Haynes made 28 saves.

“Brody played really well for us, and we had some really nice chances — Jack Anderson hit the crossbar — but (Winn) made some nice saves,” Thunder coach Dan Hodge said. “Give the kid credit. I thought we played well, we controlled the play for the most part.”

Twin City outshot the Bruins in the first and third periods.

The Bruins (2-0-0, 4 points) took a 1-0 lead midway through the first period when former Maine Nordiques player Connor Wood scored his third goal of the season.

Joe Solimine scored a shorthanded, empty-net goal in the final minute of the game.

The biggest takeaway Hodge took from the game was his team’s compete level in its first game of the season.

“They compete, they competed hard, I will be honest with you,” Hodge said. “The line of Trace Norwell-Tyler Healy-Nate Chickering, they are really good competitors and they were all over the ice. They had multiple opportunities and create opportunities for themselves with turnovers.”

Hodge thought the special teams played well, with the power play getting multiple looks on its four chances. The penalty kill also got some work by killing off all five Bruins power plays.

In the lineup Saturday was 18-year-old forward Matus Hadusovsky, who recently joined the team from the North Iowa Bulls of the North American Hockey League. Hadusovsky, an American International College commit, signed a tender with the team in January of 2019 but couldn’t come over last season because of coronavirus restrictions. He played briefly in Sweden last season before coming to the United States this season.

“He did not play (much) last year, so it’s going to be a work in progress with him,” Hodge said. “It’s going to take some time for him to get his feet back under him. We took a chance on him a couple of years ago with a (tender) and it was finally good to get him into our system.”

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