{"id":102646,"date":"2020-01-08T14:00:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T20:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=102646"},"modified":"2020-01-07T22:02:19","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T04:02:19","slug":"with-offense-kicking-into-high-gear-for-bemidji-state-beavers-forwards-proving-to-be-extremely-skilled-bunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2020\/01\/08\/with-offense-kicking-into-high-gear-for-bemidji-state-beavers-forwards-proving-to-be-extremely-skilled-bunch\/","title":{"rendered":"With offense kicking into high gear for Bemidji State, Beavers forwards proving to be ‘extremely skilled’ bunch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Bemidji State captain Adam Brady says ‘the better we are defensively, we are going to defend less and be in their end more’ (photo: BSU Photo Services).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A high-octane offense hasn\u2019t traditionally been Bemidji State\u2019s calling card.<\/p>\n

There have, of course, been Beaver teams that have scored in bunches — the 2009-10 team that featured the likes of NHLers Brad Hunt and Matt Read comes to mind right away.<\/p>\n

But generally, BSU teams have, rightly or wrongly, been stereotyped as overly defensive.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why someone looking at the national stats this season might be surprised. The Beavers are currently one of the highest-scoring teams in the country, netting 65 goals through 20 games so far this season.<\/p>\n

Anyone surprised by this hasn\u2019t been paying attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got decent scoring depth, and statistically, we\u2019ve been playing well,\u201d BSU coach Tom Serratore said Monday. \u201cDefensively, we\u2019re a top-10 team in the country. Penalty kill, we\u2019re No. 1. Power play, we\u2019re at about 20 percent. Scoring, we\u2019re at three and a half goals per game. We have a young team, but we feel we have a really talented team. We\u2019re not as fast as we used to be but we\u2019re also not as small as we used to be either.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beavers are No. 13 nationally and No. 3 in the WCHA in terms of scoring offense — only Minnesota State and Northern Michigan have scored more goals (and MSU has had two more games to score said goals).<\/p>\n

A big part of that offense prowess has been thanks to Adam Brady, Aaron Miller and their respective lines.<\/p>\n

Brady, a senior captain, has 10 goals and eight assists while Miller, a junior, leads the team in scoring with 21 points (10 goals, 11 assists). They anchor BSU\u2019s main two scoring lines — Brady on the left wing and Miller on the right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re upperclassmen, and we\u2019ve always banked on our upperclassmen,\u201d Serratore said of his team\u2019s scoring leaders. \u201cThose are two guys who have really emerged as good hockey players. They both can shoot, they both have tremendous hockey sense, and their work ethic is off the charts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady scored eight goals in both his sophomore and junior seasons for BSU but already has 10 as a senior. And this year he\u2019s become BSU\u2019s lethal weapon on the power play — six of his 10 scores have come on the man advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our forward group is extremely skilled, and we have a lot of defensemen getting in the mix and scoring too,\u201d Brady said. \u201cI think for us, our defensive responsibilities are correlating to our offensive chances, and ultimately goals. I think the better we are defensively, we are going to defend less and be in their end more.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past weekend\u2019s series against Ferris State — a Bemidji State sweep — that defense-to-offense mentality was evident. In Friday\u2019s game the Beavers severely limited the Bulldogs to just 15 shots on goal — including four in the third period — while at the same time netting five in a 5-2 win. On Saturday, it was three power-play goals — including two by Brady — that allowed the Beavers to take a lead and defend for a 4-1 win.<\/p>\n

Perhaps what has stood out most about the Beavers is that nobody has eye-popping video game numbers. Sophomore forward Owen Sillinger is the third-highest scorer on the team with 13 points (seven goals, eight assists) while freshman defenseman Elias Rosen has 13 points (two goals, eight assists).<\/p>\n

Mostly, it\u2019s been different players contributing a few goals here or a few assists there. Nine different players have two or fewer goals and in all 17 players have scored at least once for BSU.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have four lines of forwards that can all contribute and put pucks in,\u201d Brady said. \u201cA lot of it falls on my linemates. I\u2019ve played with a few different guys all year, but they\u2019ve all done an awesome job and made it easy for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beavers are currently in second place in the league standings — ahead of a few teams that were picked to finish there in the preseason. The question now is if they can keep up their scoring — and winning — ways as they enter a brutal last two months of the regular season. The schedulemakers didn\u2019t do Bemidji State many favors: The Beavers still have four more games with Minnesota State, two each with Northern Michigan, Bowling Green and Michigan Tech and long trips to Alabama and Alaska.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur schedule\u2019s a bear right now,\u201d Serratore said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got the heavyweights of our league the second half of our year. We\u2019ve got the toughest schedule in the league as a longshot. The good part is, we have put ourselves in pretty good position right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big sweep for NMU<\/h4>\n

Coming into 2020, Northern Michigan had been reeling.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats had lost five of their last eight games and slipped to sixth in the league standings.<\/p>\n

That made last weekend\u2019s series at Bowling Green — usually a great, entertaining pair of games — even bigger.<\/p>\n

Both teams desperately needed the points, but in the end it was the Wildcats that got all six, sweeping BGSU with a 5-2 win on Friday followed up by a 4-3 overtime barnburner on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In Saturday\u2019s game, the Wildcats were down 3-1 in the third period but scored two extra-attacker goals (from Joseph Nardi and Grant Loven) to tie it up in the last 90 seconds. Then Darien Craighead scored the game-winner with less than a minute to go in overtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cProud of how hard we continued to play right to the end,\u201d NMU coach Grant Potulny told FloHockey. \u201cIt is one of the biggest road sweeps we have had.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sweep vaulted the Wildcats from sixth place to third in the standings while the Falcons extended their losing streak to four games and now find themselves in sixth.<\/p>\n

Tech salvages split, moves up in Pairwise<\/h4>\n

Michigan Tech came off their Great Lakes Invitational win with a solid split at Arizona State.<\/p>\n

The Huskies lost to the Sun Devils 4-3 on Friday. MTU scored three times in the third period but couldn\u2019t quite overcome the early 3-0 deficit.<\/p>\n

That momentum, however, paid off in Saturday\u2019s game, as the Huskies were able to get a 3-2 win in a back-and-forth game thanks to Logan Pietila\u2019s game winner with 2:05 to go in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur guys find their team unity in these third-period situations,\u201d Huskies coach Joe Shahawn told the Daily Mining Gazette<\/i>. \u201cWe seem to come together. It\u2019s a great quality for this team to have coming back from third-period deficits.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskies, currently third in the WCHA, are now No. 15 in the PairWise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A high-octane offense hasn\u2019t traditionally been Bemidji State\u2019s calling card (photo: BSU Photo Services).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":102647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[854],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWith offense kicking into high gear for Bemidji State, Beavers forwards proving to be 'extremely skilled' bunch - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A high-octane offense hasn\u2019t traditionally been Bemidji State\u2019s calling card (photo: BSU Photo Services).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102646\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"With offense kicking into high gear for Bemidji State, Beavers forwards proving to be 'extremely skilled' bunch - 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