ST. PAUL, Minn. – After righting the wrongs that hurt the team near the end of the season, the St. Cloud State Huskies are heading into the NCAA tournament playing their best hockey at the right time.
No. 7 St. Cloud State claimed its second NCHC playoff title with a 3-0 victory over the Colorado College Tigers Saturday at Xcel Energy Center, and the Huskies head into the NCAA tournament on a roll. After a mid-January sweep over Denver was followed by an 0-3-3 stretch, the Huskies have won four of their last five games and six of their last nine.
“I say we’re playing pretty darn good right now,” said SCSU coach Brett Larson, who won his first playoff title in five years on the job. “They fought through a lot.”
Grant Cruikshank, who spent three years at Colorado College including as a captain during the final two, had a goal and an assist against his former team Saturday, while linemate Kyler Kupka also had a goal. Jami Krannila, who won the Frozen Faceoff’s Most Outstanding Player award, had the game’s first goal to give him two for the weekend. Despite winning the award, the senior has much more in mind as the postseason begins.
“Now we know what our next goal is,” he said.
Kaidan Mbereko had another good game for the Tigers with 23 saves, but Colorado College, which sought its first NCAA tournament berth since 2011 and first conference tournament title ever, couldn’t find the offense necessary to match St. Cloud’s, and the Tigers’ season ended just short of their goal this weekend.
“Obviously disappointed for our guys,” said a visibly emotional Tigers coach Kris Mayotte, who struggled to find words about his team’s tough end to the season. “We set out in June to play for a championship, and we did that. It didn’t go our way, but we don’t do that if we don’t have special people.”
But according to Mayotte, better days are to come for Colorado College. “We’ll be back,” he said. “That’s our program’s standard; this is our expectation.”
And quite simply, a team is on the rise when it makes a run through the conference tournament to the title game like the Tigers did over the last week. They beat two very good teams in Western Michigan and Denver to make it here. They hadn’t been to a conference title game in ten years until Saturday.
“It’s been a great run. So proud of those guys in that room,” said Colorado College defenseman Bryan Yoon, who had a great weekend defensively to earn all-tournament honors. “We had a tough second half and a lot of people counted us out. We got a special group in there.”
The Huskies struck first with just over five minutes left in the first period as their top line accounted for their fourth goal of the weekend. Krannila deflected a Zach Okabe shot past Mbereko, who gave up his first goal since the second game of Colorado College’s quarterfinal series against Western Michigan.
The Tigers kept up a good defensive effort but just couldn’t sustain any pressure in the offensive zone. The Huskies eventually increased their pressure down low and put the game away with two more goals in the third period as Cruikshank doubled the lead burying a goal-mouth pass from Micah Miller, and Kupka later made a nice deke on Mbereko before backhanding a top-shelf shot.
“We wanted to get to the paint,” Krannila said. “He’s a heck of a goalie. We just wanted to be around him in his face.”
Jaxon Castor capped a great weekend for SCSU with 17 saves to earn the shutout and all-tournament honors.
Larson has been impressed with how far his senior goaltender has come after he had a tough game in last year’s 5-4 loss to Quinnipiac in the NCAA tournament’s first round.
“The way last year ended, man, it was tough,” Larson said in a shaky voice. “I’ve just been so proud of him – how much he’s grown as a player, as a person.”
After a rough stretch in February, St. Cloud State was able to bounce back, and now the Huskies reign as NCHC Frozen Faceoff champions for the second time, previously having won it in 2016. It’s the third conference tournament title in program history. St. Cloud beat North Dakota 6-5 in overtime in the 2001 WCHA Final Five championship.
The Huskies will be a No. 2 seed when the NCAA tournament bracket is revealed on Sunday.
NCHC Frozen Faceoff All-Tournament Team
Forward: Jami Krannila (SCSU)
Forward: Zach Okabe (SCSU)
Forward: Hunter McKown (CC)
Defense: Bryan Yoon (CC)
Defense: Jack Peart (SCSU)
Goaltender: Jaxon Castor (SCSU)
MOP: Jami Krannila (SCSU)
