If you’ve got one scorer to build a
team around, David Backes is clearly a pretty good cornerstone
upon which to set your team’s foundation. But the
key to the 8-3-1 run Minnesota State Mankato has been on
since early December has been the emergence of complimentary
scorers in the Mavericks lineup.
Last Friday’s 5-4 win at Minnesota Duluth
was a prime example of the sudden offensive diversity that’s
paying dividends for Mankato fans. Backes, the opponents’
center of attention every time he was on the ice, had just
one assist, leaving the majority of the scoring workload
to teammates like defenseman Blake Friesen, who scored his
first collegiate goal, and forward Austin Sutter, who scored
for the fourth time this season.
“Guys that we need to score and haven’t,
did tonight,” said Mavericks coach Troy Jutting outside
the DECC’s pink-hued visitor’s locker room.
It should be noted that the same DECC staff who posted a
sign on the locker room door proclaiming it the home of
the “Michigan Tech Huskeys” (sic) last season,
had a sign reading “Mankato State” on the door
this year. That is so 1997.
Jutting was most happy for senior forward
Jeff Marler, who scored on Friday to snap a 22-game goal
drought and got another goal in the Saturday night 7-1 win.
“If this was the start of the year,
we lose 4-3,” said Marler on Friday. “Guys are
finally scoring, and this is the time of year to do it.”
Backes is tied with Travis Morin for the team
scoring lead with 33 points each. He frankly didn’t
expect last weekend’s offense from people like Sutter
and Marler, but was enjoying the show.
“That’s a very pleasant surprise,
but we know that we have guys that can step up,” Backes
said, reflecting back one weekend to when the Mavericks
were swept at North Dakota. “We played well last weekend
and didn’t get rewarded, but nights like this make
the pain we’ve suffered worthwhile.”
Before you make plans to spend the playoffs
in Mankato, it should be noted that the Mavs are still two
games under .500 heading into this weekend’s home
series with Michigan Tech and will need plenty of help to
crack the WCHA’s top five in the next month. Jutting
said his team has set a goal, but it has nothing to do with
the league standings.
“What we’ve set as a goal is to
play every night like it’s our last night,”
said Jutting. “I’m a guy that believes if you
do that and play that way, the other stuff will take care
of itself.”
SEEN
AND HEARD IN THE WCHA
Pioneer Spirit: Denver
heads into this weekend’s bye having won five in a
row. Where just a few weeks ago, folks were talking about
the possibility that the two-time defending NCAA champs
might not even get invited to the dance this year, road
sweeps at Wisconsin and Alaska Anchorage have vaulted the
Pioneers back into a tie for the WCHA lead, giving them
a very real chance to defend their MacNaughton Cup title.
But Pioneers coach George Gwozdecky looks
back beyond just the past few weeks when looking for reasons
that his team is in such a good position now.
“We put ourselves in contention prior
to the Christmas break with a pretty big sweep iof a series
in Duluth,” Gwozdecky said. “Everyone in our
league knows the advantage of finishing in the top three
and after that series in Duluth, I felt we were in a position
to battle for one of those top three spots.”
Great Weekend Getaway
Wisconsin
at Minnesota Duluth
(Fri.-Sat.) Two desperate teams square off on the ice
when Wisconsin visits Minnesota Duluth (the Bulldogs
and Badgers have combined to lose 10 in a row). But
the real action will be in the rafters of the DECC
on Friday night when UMD will retire Brett Hull’s
number 29 sweater. Hull played only two years for
the Bulldogs, but still holds the school’s single-season
records for goals (52), hat tricks (seven), multi-goal
games (13) and power play goals (20). Hull was the
WCHA Freshman of the Year, a Hobey finalist and played
in a Frozen Four before heading to a lucrative NHL
career which featured two Stanley Cups.
While You’re
There: If you’re one of those folks who like
a little more hockey mixed in with your hockey, head
to the DECC Saturday afternoon when perennial prep
power Duluth East hosts Chaska at 2 p.m. The Greyhounds
have been to the state tournament in nine of the past
12 seasons (winning the title twice), and are ranked
in the state’s top 10 again this year. If there’s
no overtime in the high school tilt, you may just
have time afterward to scoot over to Sammy’s
Pizza on First Street for a great pie before the Bulldogs
and Badgers drop the puck.
Stick
Salute
Congrats to former Badger Chris Chelios, who
was named captain of Team USA for the upcoming Winter
Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. While we were more
than a little surprised to see the 44-year-old even
named to the squad, especially after he announced
his “retirement” from international hockey
at the end of the 2004 World Cup, we can think of
no better team leader than a veteran of three previous
Olympics, two World Cups, two Stanley Cup titles and
a NCAA Frozen Four crown.
Bench
Minor
While some are quick to cite the loss
of starting goaltender Brian Elliott as the cause
of Wisconsin’s current four-game losing streak,
we’re wondering how much the sudden Joe
Pavelski power outage is hurting the Badgers.
Still the team’s leading scorer, Pavelski has
just two assists in the last four games, and has not
scored since notching the ninth goal in his team’s
9-1 win at Colorado College on Jan. 14.
That’s not to say that the Pioneers
don’t have designs on keeping the WCHA’s regular
season title in Denver for another summer. But like other
coaches who have won the Cup only to see their team fizzle
in the playoffs, Gwozdecky knows that the effort required
to win the regular season crown in the nation’s toughest
conference may be too much for a team with designs on playing
in April.
“The MacNaughton Cup championship is
the most difficult thing to win in college hockey, without
a doubt,” Gwozdecky said. “And there are some
people who probably don’t want to invest that time
and effort because it takes such a toll on you.”
Even with two NCAA championship trophies to
his credit, Gwozdecky still has fresh memories of his 2001-02
squad that didn’t make it to the Frozen Four after
tearing through the WCHA in the regular season.
“That’s still probably the best
team we’ve had here and we won the MacNaughton Cup
and the Broadmoor Trophy, then maybe ran out of gas a little
bit, losing a game in the third period in the NCAA playoffs,”
he said.
As for more recent history, the Pioneers’
sweep in Anchorage may have been Hobey Baker Award candidate
Matt Carle’s last trip to his hometown as a collegian,
and he put on a nice show for the home folks. Carle assisted
on four of the Pioneers’ eight weekend goals while
dealing with the normal media attention that has accompanied
the Anchorage native on both of his trips to Sullivan Arena
with Denver.
“It's always been very special for him
playing in Anchorage in front of so many of his friends
and family,” Gwozdecky said. “We’ve only
made the trip in two of his three years here and I’m
not sure if we play there next year, but Matt’s always
garnered huge media attention when we’ve played there
and he’s handled it well.”
FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
• Dave Shyiak can
do something no Alaska Anchorage coach has ever accomplished
this weekend if he can coax a win out of the Seawolves in
their series at St. Cloud State. Since the building opened
in 1989, the Seawolves are 0-22-2 at the National Hockey
Center. And with the Huskies suddenly sniffing a shot at
home ice, the Seawolves may be picking a bad time to try
and snap the skid.
• When North Dakota takes a penalty
this weekend in the series at Colorado College, the Sioux
might not want to see Marty Sertich and Brian Salcido heading
onto the ice for the ensuing power play. Sertich and Salcido
are first and second in the WCHA in power play points with
24 and 22 man-advantage points, respectively.
• Michigan Tech’s current four-game
unbeaten streak (2-0-2) is the team’s longest run
without a loss since the Huskies went 3-0-1 over a two week
stretch of February 1998.
• Last weekend’s sweep at Wisconsin
was a “good news, bad news” deal for fans of
Gopher forward Danny Irmen. On Friday Irmen recorded his
second career hat trick, and followed it up on Saturday
with a pair of assists, earning a share of the WCHA’s
Offensive Player of the Week award. The bad news came late
in the Saturday game, when Irmen took a hard shot and is
expected to miss the next three to five weeks with a separated
shoulder. It’s the second significant injury for Irmen
this season. He missed nine games after breaking a finger
in the Gophers season-opening loss to Alaska Fairbanks.
• Last weekend’s pair of 2-1 wins
by St. Cloud State at North Dakota marked the first time
in the hockey program’s history that the Huskies swept
a weekend series in Grand Forks.
• While North Dakota’s 9-3-1
road record is much more impressive than its 7-8-0 home
mark, Colorado Springs World Arena is probably not the best
place for the Fighting Sioux to try to break their current
two-game losing streak. North Dakota last won there in December
2000, and has lost six in a row at CC.
A variety of sources were utilized in
the compilation of this report.
