The votes are in and, while it was close, we have a new team at the top of the leaderboard. Northern Michigan beat out Minnesota State by a single point to take the first-place finish. While both teams have had strong performances over the last two months, the Mavericks have a slightly better record, but the Wildcats arguably had the stronger opposing schedule.
Minnesota State spent their weekend at home, playing hosts to the United States National Team Development Program U18 team, whom they beat 5-3 to go up to 2-0-2 in the all-time record. Next weekend, they’ll stay home again, this time hosting Alaska-Anchorage for the Mavericks’ first conference games in what will then be three weeks.
Further down the table, Ferris State moved up a spot after sweeping Michigan Tech at home over the weekend to the tune of 4-3/3-1. It’s an odd move in that Ferris moving up a spot came with the caveat that Alabama-Huntsville had to move down to make room; the Chargers split with Bemidji this weekend, each winning a game 5-1. Somehow, despite this, they didn’t also manage to leapfrog the Huskies who occupy the next spot up.
Perhaps more strangely, the Huskies managed at least a 2nd-place vote this week on the heels of a messy showing that highlighted the importance of staying out of the box. The Huskies managed only 2-11 on the power play while giving up 4-8 to the Bulldogs when killing their own penalties. Further, on Friday night, the Huskies’ goaltending staff of Packy Munson and Devin Kero combined for a poor .778 SV%. As seen in the cover photo for this article, fans were willing to voice their displeasure with the tack this season has taken. Several Huskies players were out sick or injured this week, which may be considered a mitigating factor in voting, but it still doesn’t change a poor result on the weekend.
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Cover photo credit Ryan Johnson.
Alex Slepak is the former Editor-in-Chief of Tech Hockey Guide. Alex was a Student Conductor of the Huskies Pep Band and graduated from MTU in 2014 with a B.S. in Scientific and Technical Communication. After graduating, he moved to the Twin Cities where he now writes software manuals for a living.
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as i posted on USCHO;
for as much as tech’s season has been a tiring manic-depressive schizophrenic ordeal, i am already looking forward to building on “this” for next year – and i am very happy with the top three teams…
would be super to see all three of them going to the tourney with NMU winning the macnaughton [and that’s coming from a tech fan] and bowling green winning the broadmoor after last year’s loss (and what a beautiful loss) to tech here in houghton…
grant potulny will be coach of the year.
and the way its looking, we’ll be playing BSU… i just hope its here at home.
and for the seasons to come, if we can find a way to sustain four teams above 20 in the PWR, life is good.
GO TECH GOLD!
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