Junior goaltender Allyn Goehner gave her Forest Lake Rangers the gift of a 30-save shutout in Thursday night’s 1-0 win over Andover, ranked No. 2 in Class 2A. 

Goehner’s Secret Santa’s idea of reciprocation was a bag of coal. 

Despite walking out of the locker room with a mesh bag of black carbon chunks (in reality; candy), Goehner was all smiles after her performance, in which she repeatedly denied the high-high-powered Andover offense in the waning minutes of the third period. 

“The last one minute, twenty-six seconds felt like forever,” Goehner said with a grin after the game.

“She was unbelievable tonight, I’d say the whole game, but specifically the third (period),” Forest Lake head coach Todd Gutterman said after the win. “You play a team like Andover, you expect a little pushback, and they definitely pushed in the third, and she held strong.” 

The No. 5-2A Rangers (9-0) nursed a 1-0 lead for half of the game, as junior forward Brieja Parent scored on one of the Rangers’ six power-play opportunities, swatting a backhand shot over Andover goaltender Cassidy Stumo’s right shoulder. 

“To be honest, I don’t remember because I had so much adrenaline,” Parent said when asked how she scored, adding that a longtime friendly rivalry with the Huskies helped her emotions reach their competitive peak. 

“We’ve grown up with them, we’ve kind of been rivals, I guess,” Parent said. “It’s always fun to play against them.”

Stumo finished with 25 saves for the Huskies in the loss. 

Andover (9-2) defeated Forest Lake 4-2 during last year’s regular season and then blanked the Rangers 3-0 in the Section 7-2A finals to end the Ranger season. The Huskies would not repeat history on Thursday night, thanks in large part to a perfect Forest Lake penalty kill that was successful on four of four tries. 

“I trust my teammates because we work on it a lot, and I just know that they’ll have my back and will do their jobs,” Goehner said of the penalty-killers in front of her. 

The Huskies’ inability to capitalize with the player-advantage, plus serving 14 minutes for seven infractions of their own, played into the Forest Lake game plan, as the Rangers slowed the attack through the neutral zone and blocked a handful of shots.

A win over the second-ranked team in the state and last season’s section champion (in addition to being the only undefeated Class 2A team left standing) won’t lead to an emotional hangover, as Gutterman tempered the drama early by reminding his players that the season is just a few weeks old.  
“My message to the girls was (that) it’s December 13th,” Gutterman said. “It’s all a part of the process of just getting better, game in and game out,” Gutterman continued. 

“We were going to come in and play our game, and see how our game matched up with their game, and then if we’re fortunate enough to see them in February, we know we gotta make a few adjustments, and I’m sure they’re going to make some as well.”