This weekend, Michigan Tech can accomplish something most CCHA teams haven’t able to do much of this season — gain on Minnesota State.
In fairness, it’s only because the top-ranked Mavericks are idle this weekend. But the Huskies (17-8-2) have a huge home series with Bowling Green this weekend, and thanks to their big 8-1 win over Northern Michigan on Tuesday night in Marquette, they can close the gap with the Mavericks to just four points if they can earn a sweep of the Falcons.
That, of course, is easier said than done.
Recent meetings between the teams have favored the Falcons, who are 10-3-2 against the Huskies since 2018. And the Huskies haven’t had much time to prepare for them yet this week because of their Tuesday rivalry game against NMU.
“We haven’t seen Bowling Green yet, and this is the first and only time we’re seeing them in the regular season,” Michigan Tech coach Joe Shawhan had said on his radio show Monday. “We haven’t been able to do any prep work on them to adjust around.”
BGSU is in the midst of a three-game losing streak after being swept at home by Minnesota State last weekend. The Falcons, currently in fourth place with 30 points, are attempting to fend off NMU (26 points), Lake Superior State (24 points) and Ferris State (23 points) for the final home ice spot in next month’s CCHA playoffs.
“We know Michigan Tech is a really good hockey team,” BGSU coach Ty Eigner said during his weekly news conference on Tuesday afternoon. “They’re chasing Minnesota State to win the league, and we’re trying to keep a hold of a home playoff spot. For us, we’ve said every weekend, this is the biggest weekend of the year, just because of the points that are in play. Every weekend there’s less and less points available.”
Eigner also said that this weekend being Tech’s annual Winter Carnival makes it the closest thing to a playoff atmosphere that the Falcons are going to experience before the playoffs actually begin.
“For us, this is going to be as much of a playoff series as we’ll be able to play leading up to the playoffs because the crowd is going to be crazy, it’s going to be sold out, and the atmosphere will be like the playoffs,” he said.
Tech’s Winter Carnival weekends are always raucous, sold-out affairs, but the road team has actually fared fairly well in Houghton in the recent past. Although the Huskies swept last season’s series against Ferris State, the seasons from 2016-2020 saw the teams split the Winter Carnival games.
“We know it’s going to be a difficult task. They’re really good, and they’re really good at home. They’re second place in our conference for a reason,” Eigner said.
On Tuesday, the Huskies showed why, putting eight goals past NMU goaltender Nolan Kent. Brian Halonen, Tristan Ashbrook and Logan Ganie had two goals each while Trenton Bliss added four assists. In all, 12 total Huskies recorded at least a point.
“Thirty-three shots, eight goals, that doesn’t happen very often, especially in this rink and in this rivalry,” Shawhan said after Tuesday’s game. “We had another great game out of Ganie’s line, but all our guys did well. We’ll take the win, get on the bus and head home to prepare for Bowling Green.”
