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The Austin Bruins may have been front runners in the NAHL Central Division for most of the regular season, but as far as Austin head coach Steve Howard is concerned, that lead is now gone.

The Bruins won the NAHL Central Division regular season title by 12 points this season, but now the real battle begins as top-seeded Austin will host No. 4 Minot in the Central Division semifinals this weekend, with games taking place at 7:05 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday in Riverside Arena.

The series is a best-of-five-format.

“I don’t know if anybody is the favorite in our division,” Howard said. “It’s the same teams with a different season. The regular season just determined that we get home ice, but anybody can beat anybody in our division. One through four all have good hockey teams and even five and six, who are doing exit meetings, had good hockey teams. You’ve got to win three games and you’ve got to make sure you’ve got a hot goalie, a solid defense core and some forwards who can put the puck in the net. It comes down to accountability.”

While Minot is not an offensive juggernaut, the Minotuaros are stingy on defense as Lawton Zacher, the brother of Bruins forward Walter Zacher, allows just 2.58 goals per game and has stopped 92 percent of the shots he has seen this year.

Austin will attack Minot’s defense with Gavin Morrissey, who had a team-high 44 assists to go along with 17 goals and Walter Zacher, who had 32 goals and 23 assists this season. Austin Salani, who had 15 goals and 32 assists in 52 games is also expected to be back in the lineup.

“Their goalies have been playing really well,” Howard said. “We’ve got to get some traffic at the net and we’ve got to make things happen. We’ve got to make sure we take care of it on our end. They’re not a team that puts up 40 shots a night, but they can obviously score when they get those chances.

When Minot has the puck, the Bruins will aim to stop Hunter Longhi, who had 22 goals and 49 assists and Chase LaPinta, who had 34 goals and 22 assists this season.

The Bruins will lean on the goaltending of rookie Trent Wiemken, who went 18-6-1-4 overall this season while allowing 2.07 goals per game and stopping 92 percent of the shots he saw.

Austin played its last three games of the regular season against Minot and those games meant more to the Minotaruos, who were fighting for a playoff spot, than they did to Austin, which had everything clinched.

“We’re fine tuning ourselves right now and we’re getting ready with some of the things that we were maybe a little bit loose over the last month or so,” Howard said. “We’ve shifted gears with some of our tenders and affiliate guys that were able to play in some games, and now it’s just down to our team. We should be healthy and we’re getting some guys who have been injured back in the lineup.”

Howard and the Bruins are hoping to see Riverside rocking this weekend as the team is looking to take advantage of the home ice it has earned.

“It’s been nice to see the fan base come back this year,” Howard said. “This season has been great and we love seeing both sides full. We’re hoping everybody comes out to support us on Friday and Saturday.”