After dropping both games to Penn State two weeks ago, St. Thomas coach Rico Blasi said he wasn’t much for “moral victories.”
The Tommies had lost to the Nittany Lions 6-2 in their series opener before rallying in Friday’s finale and losing 3-2 in overtime.
Clearly, Blasi is attempting to build the newly-promoted St. Thomas program into something other than a team that’s just “happy to be here.”
This weekend, the Tommies continued to build to that, and drove back to St. Paul with no mere moral victory. St. Thomas split with Ferris State in their CCHA opening series, losing 3-2 in overtime on Friday before winning 5-2 Saturday. The Tommies (2-6-0, 1-1-0 CCHA) returned from Big Rapids, Mich., with four of the possible six conference points.
“You want to make sure you’re making progress and that we’re actually seeing something for all our hard work,” Blasi said during his weekly media availability on Monday. “I don’t think I’ve left the rink after a practice or a game saying that our team doesn’t work hard. We have a lot of tough lessons to learn so we talk about that a lot. But at some point as an individual, you want to see something happen. So walking into the locker room after a win because we talked about some things Saturday and actually did them is important, because that’s part of the process that we’re going through.
“Once that starts to happen, hopefully our guys don’t think about it any more, we just do it.”
One big adjustment the Tommies made from Friday to Saturday involved special teams. St. Thomas scored on the power play but ultimately lost the special teams battle on Friday, as Ferris scored both a power play and shorthanded goal in the series opener.
The Tommies ended up with three power play goals and a shorty on Saturday.
“We thought as a staff it was going to be a special teams game, so we really were focused on making sure we didn’t take any unnecessary penalties, even though we did. But they did as well, and our power play did a really good job,” Blasi said.
Freshmen Lucas Wahlin and Ryan O’Neill each finished the weekend with three points to add to their team-high eight points apiece. Whalin’s line, which also consists of freshman Josh Eernisse and sophomore Cameron Recchi, had six points. Eernisse and Mack Beyers scored two goals apiece on the weekend, while Whalin, Grant Docter and Luke Manning also lit the lamp for the Tommies.
In all, St. Thomas’ lineup – which this weekend featured 13 freshmen or sophomores – finally seems to have become comfortable playing with one another.
“We’ve kept the lines together now for a few weeks, so guys are starting to feel good about where each other are going to be and are feeding off each other,” Blasi said. “A lot of it has to do with bearing down and shooting the puck and getting to those nasty areas. We know 90 percent of the goals are scored in front of the net, so you have to get there, and you have to pay the price, and our guys are starting to understand that.”
The Tommies, who won just three games a season ago, are two-thirds of the way to that mark already this year. And last season, it took them until Jan. 15 to record win No. 2. This season they even have a nonconference win – something they didn’t do last year – after they beat Alaska 3-2 on Oct. 8.
Their other two nonconference series thus far were both against top-15-caliber opponents in St. Cloud State and Penn State, so this weekend’s home-and-home series against No. 6 Minnesota State won’t faze the Tommies.
“It’s another opportunity for our team to see where we’re at and where we need to go,” Blasi said. “I think we’re up for the challenge. We’ve played already four games against top-10 opponents, and Mankato is no different. We have to play our game, make sure we’re paying attention to detail and that our habits are good, and we know they’re going to come in waves. That’s part of the process, and part of us learning how to play with those teams. “
