There’s been a lot of talk about the “curse” of the top-ranked team this college hockey season, but after this past weekend, I’m thinking we should amend this “curse” to something else: If you’re the No. 1 team in the country, you might not want to play Northern Michigan.
The Wildcats, who beat Minnesota State 4-2 on Friday in Marquette, had already swept Minnesota Duluth at home before Christmas. In both instances, their opponents were ranked No. 1 but were voted off the top spot in the next week’s poll.
“As an athlete, those games are easy to get excited for,” NMU head coach Grant Potulny said Tuesday as to why his team plays so well against top-ranked opponents. “We had them at home, too, so that obviously helps.”
NMU, at 13-9-1 overall and 10-5-0 at home in the Berry Events Center, is also much healthier now than they were at the start of the year. Having a (mostly) full lineup has helped the Wildcats prove they are a much better team than perhaps they showed at the start of the season. The one glaring injury that remains is senior captain Joe Nardi, who was injured during a collision in practice and will miss the rest of the season.
“We’ve kind of gotten healthy at the back end,” Potulny said. “We have had six defensemen and, aside from Joe, a full complement of forwards. Health has been a big thing for us, and getting healthy was something we’ve been trying to do all year, and with the exception of Joe, we’re as healthy as we’ve ever been.”
Nardi, the team’s points leader in 2021, will be a big loss for NMU. The senior forward came back for an extra year to help try and get the Wildcats back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2010.
“I’m heartbroken for Joe,” Potulny said. “He’s always been a strong finisher and he was starting to flip the switch again. But he’ll be ready for pro hockey. It’s just unfortunate, because (last weekend) it was the first game I ever coached at Northern Michigan without Joe Nardi on the bench. We’re going to miss him, but we have some offensive scoring depth, and that’s been carrying the day so far.”
The Wildcats do have that, as they possess the top goal scorer in the CCHA (AJ Vanderbeck, 17) and the top assist getter in the league (Hank Crone, 24). They have the second-most goals in the league (90, after MSU’s 103).
Potulny said his main concern for his team now is keeping the puck out of the net. Their goal differential in the conference is -6. But Potulny saw some encouraging signs this weekend against the Mavericks.
“This (past) weekend, on Friday we did a great job of (defending), and on Saturday we did an OK job, too,” he said. “We gave up a couple power-play goals, but for the most part, we did a nice job so hopefully that’s a sign of things to come.”
The Wildcats held the Mavericks to just two goals in Friday’s win – quite the feat, considering MSU has been averaging nearly four goals per game this year. On Saturday MSU ended up winning 4-1 to earn the split.
Still, beating Minnesota State at all was a nice feat for the Wildcats, who were swept by the Mavericks 4-2 and 7-0 back in October. They have won three of their last four since coming back from Christmas break and are 11-4-1 since November.
Really, the one blip since the previous MSU series in October was the series that directly followed their sweep of UMD. On Dec. 10-11 they traveled to Lake Superior and were swept 7-2 and 4-1. That wasn’t a good way to end the first half of the season, so the fact that they were able to come back from the holidays refreshed to sweep Colgate and split with Minnesota State was a good sign for Potulny.
“To get three of four out of the gate coming back, that, down the stretch for us is going to be important because we did lose opportunities to have our full complement of players to acquire points,” Potulny said. “Now we’re getting healthier and we’re in a dogfight for home ice so we need to make sure we’re continuing to get points each weekend. But most important is that we’re not just winning points, we need to make sure we win series because we have some ground to make up.”
NMU is in fifth in the CCHA table with 21 points, five behind Bowling Green. They can make up that ground and then some, because they still get a chance to play all three teams in the No. 2 through No. 4 slots (Bemidji State, Michigan Tech and BGSU, respectively) in the season’s second half.
The first of those potential ground-gaining matchups is against rivals Michigan Tech for a home-and-home this weekend. The teams already split a series in November, with the away team winning each matchup. Both teams come into the series nationally-ranked (Tech is 17th and Northern is 19th).
“It’s kind of going to be the tale of two teams that go at it a little differently,” he said. “They’re a great defensive team and we’ve been able to generate offense, so we’re going to have to make sure we defend on the level they do, we have to make sure we can get into the net-front area, and we have to get to their goalie (Blake Pietila). He’s one of the elite goalies in college hockey.”
Victory No. 400 for Blasi
This column would be remiss if I did not mention the milestone victory from this weekend.
Not only did St. Thomas’ thrilling last-second win over Ferris State on Saturday night give the Tommies their second victory of the season, but it also gave head coach Rico Blasi his 400th career head coaching win.
And it was a game worthy of a milestone.
The Tommies (2-22-0) stormed out to a 3-0 lead only to see the Bulldogs chip away. They eventually tied the game on an extra-attacker goal with 55 seconds left, but it didn’t end there. UST’s John Schuldt muscled the game-winner into the net with five seconds remaining to make it official.
It broke a 15-game losing streak for the Tommies. Both of their wins came against Ferris State.
Blasi and UST will look to add to those win totals this weekend when they take on Minnesota State Mankato in a home-and-home series. Saturday’s contest in Mankato will be an outdoor game at MSU’s 7,000-seat Blakeslee Stadium as part of Hockey Day Minnesota festivities.
