The Austin Bruins had to make one minor adjustment before they won their fourth straight game Thursday night.

Quite frankly, they had to pass less.

The Bruins got back to their quick strike offense by scoring four third period goals in a 6-4 win over last place Aberdeen (16-28-3 overall) in Riverside Arena.

Austin trailed 3-2 after two periods when Jack Walsh tied the game up with 16:13 left in the game and Jeremy Finger put the Bruins up for good 26 seconds later.

“We got chewed out pretty bad by coach and we usually play better if we get chewed out, so it was good thing,” Finger said. “I’ve been on a little rough patch the last couple of weeks, so it was good to get a goal.”

Finger’s goal helped cool off Austin head coach Chris Tok as he executed a crash off a high screen perfectly to score off a rebound. Tok said the team has worked on that play three times a week since October.

“I actually smiled on that one because they listened,” Tok said. “I like teaching and when you do something over and over again and they finally do it (in a game), it’s a pretty rewarding feeling.”

The Bruins scored five of their six goals from within five feet of the goal — while the Wings had a couple of deep shots bounce in during the first.

Austin changed it’s misfortunes when it began to fire early and often.

“ We had a lot of possessions but not a lot shots (early on),” Tok said. “Sometimes they think they can go back to playing a perimeter skill game and they didn’t have a lot of success doing that. Now we have some ammunition to show them the light again.”

Cody Hotchkin made it a 5-3 game when he got free on a shorthanded breakaway with 9:48 left in the game and John Kirby fired a slap shot to make it 6-3 with 4:16 left in the game.

“I couldn’t put away my breakaway on my first shift but I was glad to get one in the end,” Kirby said. “It all worked out for us.”

Tok said that the Bruins wouldn’t mind Kirby taking a few more shots.

“We’ve got to get him shooting, he can fire the puck,” he said. “He let it go and it was a good shot.”

After Kirby’s goal came the low point of the night. With 8:51 left in the game, Jonathan Gehrt, a defenseman from Woodbury, Minn. was knocked to the ground face down on the ice. He was motionless for a good period of time before being taken away on a stretcher.

Both teams had to look on without knowing Gehrt’s condition.

“We’ve been with each other for the last seven months and we’ve become a family. To see someone hurt like that, it’s just not a good feeling,” Kirby said. “We were hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. We were all scared out there and none of us saw what actually happened.”

Keegan Asmundson stopped 21 of the 25 shots he saw in the win for the Bruins.

Austin, which is in fourth place in the Central Divison will now head to third place Alexandria for a two-game road series.

SCORING SUMMARY

Aberdeen 2 1 1 — 4

Austin 2 0 4 — 6

First period

(A) Charlie Adams (Jordan Greenberg, Alex Tesenky) 6:26

(AB) Geoff Ferguson (Tyler Poulsen, Cody Marooney) 7:26

(AB) Brandon Platt (CJ Pullar) Paul Prescott) 15:18

(A) James Dickinson (Jadin Martin, Trevor Waldoch) 15:52

Second period

(AB) Louis Educate (Tyler Underhill, Brendan Gust) 6:49

Third period

(A) Jack Walsh (Martin) 3:47

(A) Jeremy Finger (Sam Olson, Connor Quinn) 4:13

(A) Cody Hotchkin (SH) (John Kirby) 10:12

(A) Kirby (powerplay) (Connor Quinn, Waldoch) 15:44

(AB) Cory Ward (Poulsen) 18:32

Shots: Austin — 37; Aberdeen — 25

Powerplays: Aberdeen — 0-for-2; Austin — 1-for-3