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In just four days, the Austin Bruins went from possibly making offseason plans to making NAHL Central finals plans.

The No. 2 seeded Bruins finished off an improbable comeback after trailing No. 3 Minot 2-0 in the series when they won three straight elimination games, including a decisive game five by a score of 5-1 in front of their home fans in Riverside Arena Monday night.

Austin head coach Steve Howard said he’s never been part of a team that won three straight elimination games before and he credits his team for the fight they showed against the Minotauros.

“You find out a lot about yourselves in the playoffs. For some of these guys, it was their first playoff series,” Howard said. “You’ve got to see who’s confident with the puck and you’ve got to see who’s got the experience and who doesn’t. I think winning a game five will be big for all of these players moving forward and more importantly, it’s a big feather in our cap right now.”

In a series where goals have been hard to come by, Austin seized momentum early on as as Luc Malkhassian struck twice in the first 10 minutes of the game to make it 2-0. Austin pushed that lead to 3-0 when Gavin Hruza added a transition goal with 8:08 left in the first period.

Jackson Rilei extended Austin’s lead to 4-0 when he hit a slap shot in the second period.

“Against these guys, getting that first goal is really big and getting that first momentum shift is pretty big,” Rilei said. 

The Bruins had to think about their 2-0 series deficit for about a 10-hour bus ride before game three and they were able to think about game five for another long bus ride before Monday’s showdown.

“I don’t think there was any doubt, even when we were down 2-0 going to their rink,” Rilei said. “There was never any doubt in our room. We had a great week of practice and we just stuck to it. We battled and upped our compete. I think we were a little bit slow in the first two games, then we went into Minot and kind of ran show. Having home court advantage and playing game five in front of our fans here was huge.”

The Bruins trailed the series 2-0 after dropping the first two games at home, but Evan Malkhassian scored two goals in a 3-1 win in game three and Hruza scored a double OT game winner on Saturday night as Austin swept the games in Minot to force the game five.

“That’s playoff hockey,” Howard said. “We didn’t earn the bounces when we were here and they did. We had to tighten a couple of things up and I’m just really proud of these guys. We went there in a hostile environment. We had to kill 13 penalties over there and our PK was lights out this entire series.”

Jack Solomon was nearly flawless in the net in game five for Austin as he finished with 33 saves and Minot didn’t score until late in the game.

Austin will now try to make it to its fourth Robertson Cup in franchise history as the Bruins finished second in the NAHL in 2014, 2015 and 2023. To advance, the Bruins will have to get past No. 1 Bismarck and that five-game series will begin in Bismarck this Friday.

SCORING SUMMARY

Minot 0 0 1 – 1

Austin 3 1 1 – 5

First period

(A) Luc Malkhassian (Ludvig Mellgren, Ashton Bynum) 6:23

(A) Luc Malkhassian (EJ Paddington, Alex Laurenza) 9:47

(A) Gavin Hruza (Bynum) 13:52

Second period

(A) Jackson Rilei (Luc Malkhassian) 2:29

Third period

(A) Evan Malkhassian 13:33

(M) Adam Mahler (Jack Edwards, Noah Gibbs) 18:34