Northern Michigan’s series against Lake Superior State early in January was a wake-up call for the Wildcats.
Playing their first series back from the holiday break, the Wildcats had maybe expected to come back to play one of their Upper Peninsula rivals tough after a refreshing vacation. Instead, the Lakers swept the Wildcats 5-1 and 5-2, taking the Cappo Cup trophy away from NMU while simultaneously giving their rivals a bit of a gut punch.
“We were 29 days between games, and I felt like we were in a really good place when we left for the break,” NMU coach Grant Potulny said in a phone interview on Tuesday, reflecting on the past month since the break. “And we came back and we were just disjointed.”
If this past weekend’s results are any indication, all of NMU’s joints seem to be well-oiled and back to their full range of motion. The Wildcats took five of six points from their other (main) UP rivals, winning 4-1 Friday before battling back to tie and earn a shootout win on Saturday. It’s the third-straight weekend in which the Wildcats (9-13-4) have managed to earn at least two points.
“That weekend (against Lake State) was humbling, there’s no doubt about that. And now we’ve kind of been building, trying to get us back where we were before the break. Hopefully this (past) weekend is a side of things to come,” Potulny said. “And we’ve been pushing them pretty hard, so to get some evidence that what we’re doing works was important.”
The Wildcats have slowly clawed their way back into the conversion for home-ice advantage in the standings, too. After the debacle in Sault Ste. Marie, NMU was in sixth place–eight points behind fourth-place Michigan Tech. Now the Wildcats have closed the gap. They are still in sixth place but are just two points (25) behind both Bemidji State and Michigan Tech, who are tied for fourth. Lake Superior State is in third, just a point ahead of BSU and Tech.
So it wasn’t lost on Potulny how big it was to earn those points against the Huskies.
“One for the points but two, just because it was our biggest rival, I think that that hopefully gives us a shot in the arm here for the stretch run,” he said. “And just look at our league. I mean, it’s just so tight that all of a sudden, somebody puts four games together, and you get more than three points a couple of weekends in a row, you could really move up the standings.”
It doesn’t take an engineer to figure out that home ice advantage is important in the playoffs–especially in the CCHA, where the entire Mason Cup tournament is played at home sites. But it’s especially vital for the Wildcats this year, who have found themselves playing significantly better at home (8-3-1) than on the road (1-10-3). NMU’s lone road win came way back in October against Bowling Green. So for them to earn two points in Houghton in Saturday’s game was huge–a tie and a shootout win isn’t quite the same as a regulation win, but two points are two points.
“Honestly, I think in the games that we’ve lost, we will lose the game in probably like a three to five-minute segment where we ended up giving up two to three goals, bang, bang, bang. It’s happened to us in the past on the road a lot this year, Potulny said. “On Saturday, we probably couldn’t have played a better second period, we got the game tied, and then they get a power play goal. And I think that sequence in the past would have derailed us and probably compounded it, but it’s an area that we’ve been really focusing on: making the next right play.
“Mistakes are gonna happen, just make the next right play.”
The “next right play” came 15 minutes into the third period. Kevin Marx Noren took a shot from the deep slot that dinged off the post and Michael Colella scooped up the rebound and beat Tech goalie Blake Pietila to tie the game at 3-3. Colella ended up scoring the deciding goal in the shootout to give NMU the extra point.
Marx Noren, for his part, was named the CCHA’s rookie of the week after recording two assists in each game this weekend. The Swedish forward has upped his game in the second half of the season, with six points in eight games in 2024. He had gone through a dry spell in the months of November and December, so Potulny is glad to see him back producing again. He currently leads NMU freshmen with 13 points (three goals, 10 assists).
“He’s kind of doing what you hope all your freshmen can do when they come back after that break,” Potulny said. “I tell the freshmen that they’re really not freshmen anymore, because you know what college is like, you’re comfortable in the locker room, you know what the league’s like. So when you come back the hope is that you can kind of take that next step. And Kevin is most certainly doing that.
“And I think to be honest, all the freshmen have kind of seen a bump in the second half and it just changes your depth when those guys can do that and you’re not worried about who they’re playing against.”
The Wildcats have three more series to play before the playoffs begin. Up first is a head-to-head matchup against Bemidji State. It’s the first time the teams have met this season; the Beavers are just two points ahead of NMU in the standings.
“You can have a hiccup early in the year and kind of survive it because there’s enough time left,” Potulny said. “But I think any miscues at this point, I think it’s gonna affect whether you’re at home or you’re on the road and, most certainly everybody would like to be at home for the first round.”
