When everything is said and done, Jackson Jutting’s game-winning goal on Friday might turn out to be the most consequential one of Bemidji State’s season.
The Beavers came into last weekend knowing every single point matters in the race for the MacNaughton Cup. So despite allowing the game-tying goal with 30 seconds to go against fellow MacNaughton contender St. Thomas, the Beavers weren’t about to let another valuable point in the standings slip away.
A little more than two minutes into the 3-on-3 overtime period on Friday, Jutting took matters into his own hands. He picked up a loose puck at his own blue line, glided down the right side of the ice and then when he got into the Tommies zone cut into the slot and took a wrist shot that zinged past St. Thomas goaltender Aaron Trotter, bar down and into the net.
“We had to have a short memory,” Jutting said after that game, referring to the team’s mindset going into the overtime period. “We realized that two points are massive at this point of the season. We knew what was at stake, we knew we had a thin lead at the top of the standings, and we know next weekend that that extra point is going to mean a whole lot more.”
Jutting’s assessment was spot-on. The Beavers (15-15-2, 13-7-2 CCHA) went on to beat St. Thomas in regulation 3-1 on Saturday, taking five out of six points from the series and remaining atop the CCHA standings entering the last weekend of play. And because BSU got some help from results elsewhere around the league, their math for clinching the MacNaughton this weekend is pretty simple: A win, either in regulation or overtime, gives the Beavers the title outright.
Their opponents–and standing in their way–are their old nemesis, the Minnesota State Mavericks.
The script writers couldn’t have done any better: The first-place Beavers (with 42 points) host the second-place Mavericks (16-12-4, 12-8-2 CCHA, with 38 points) at the Sanford Center in Bemidji for an instate rivalry series that will be even more intense than normal. The Beavers will be looking for their first MacNaughton Cup since 2016-17, when they won the WCHA title by 10 points. That 2016-17 season also happens to be the last time a team other than Minnesota State took home the MacNaughton — they have won the Cup six seasons in a row, straddling the old WCHA and the CCHA.
“They’ve been the model program in our league,” BSU coach Tom Serratore said in a phone interview earlier this week. “And (MSU head coach Luke Strand) has done a great job this year. It wasn’t easy for them, with them losing so many guys and having the coaching staff go to Wisconsin, but Luke’s done a great job. And right now, they’re still the keepers of the cup. It’s their cup right now, so it’s a testament to their players and that coaching staff that they’re in this position again.”
Strand, the Mavericks’ first-year head coach, said on Tuesday that his players are aware of MSU’s track record and want to keep up their run.
“I think our newer players, they have a ton of pride in what’s happened before they got here,” Strand said. “And I think the guys that have been here, they know they’ve got a lot to uphold as far as what happened prior to this team this year.”
Neither the Beavers nor the Mavericks were considered favorites for the MacNaughton at the start of the year. Michigan Tech was the consensus pick from both the media and the coaches for the league title. Everyone thought the Mavericks would struggle with a new coach in Strand, who took over when Mike Hastings left for Wisconsin and took with him a number of players and most of his coaching staff. The Mavericks fought for respectability all season and took some time to gel under Strand.
But since being swept by Michigan Tech at home back in November, MSU has taken points from every league series, playing consistently hockey and not letting themselves get too far behind the league leaders (MSU, BSU and St. Thomas have been exchanging the lead in the standings since Christmas). Most recently, the Mavs rallied from a 4-3 loss at home to Lake Superior State on Friday to notch a comeback 4-3 win on Saturday to stay alive for a chance at the CCHA title.
“It feels like every game has been so close for us all year,” Strand said. “We’ve had a lot of time playing in close games and now you want to come out on the right side of those kinds of games. To do that, you have to be prepared to go through the whole grind. And the closer we get to playing an entire 60 minutes, we like our chances.”
The Beavers also weren’t picked to finish anywhere near the top, with most thinking they’d finish somewhere in the fourth-and-fifth place range, fighting for home ice. They started the season slowly, too, with a number of key injuries (Jutting missed a good chunk of the season, as did senior captain Kyle Looft and goaltender Mattias Sholl) and absences (star freshman defenseman missed six games in December and January while playing for Team USA in the World Juniors).
However, they, too, have overcome that early-season adversity–since being swept in a home-and-home with rivals St. Cloud State, the Beavers have gotten at least two points from every series since. They’ve taken 15 points of 18 points from their last six league games.
“Everybody goes through tough times during the year, and the season is, what, 20 weeks long. There’s a lot of adversity that goes on during the year, and there’s times that you’re struggling, you’re trying to figure yourself out, and there’s times you know, things are going pretty well for you,” Serratore said. “We’re excited to be playing in a big game at this point in the season, and I think a lot of it’s a testament to the players. Over the course of the last month, we’re playing pretty solid hockey. We’ve got 17 points out of our last possible 21. So, that’s the one thing in a tight league like this, is that if you can go on a little bit of a run in a two- or three-week span, you can put yourself in a pretty good position, and we were fortunate enough to do that.”
The Beavers and the Mavericks met once already this season, with the teams splitting their series in Mankato. But both teams are in much different places now–and most importantly, both teams should be healthy for this regular-season heavyweight finale.
“To their team’s credit, and to Tom’s credit, the adversity they went through, now they’re back on the other side of it,” Strand said of the Beavers. “They’ve won eight out of the last 10 or whatever. They’ve done their part to make sure they didn’t fall out, and at the same time, now they’re playing their best hockey of the season.”
