Season 2 Episode 14 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; “Mega Lasagna” This week Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom, Rob Gilreath, and Matt Cavender were joined by Drew Evans with BGSUHockey.com. Here’s a run down of the topic we discussed:

  • #BellLetsTalk Day (4:45)
  • NMU Series Recap (6:27)
  • BGSU Season (17:24)
  • BGSU-MTU Goaltending Matchup (25:35)
  • College Hockey New Power 16 (30:13)
  • NCAA Selection Process (32:26)
  • Listener Questions (40:31)
  • Dominic Hennig (55:51)
  • Trivia (61:03)
  • Predictions (67:02)

#BellLetsTalk Day

Bell Let’s Talk day is a day organized by the Bell corporation in Canada as a way to raise money and awareness of mental illness and treatment. Though the efforts are more directly seen in Canada, these efforts often bleed into the American hockey conversation on Twitter. This week, our podcast is being dropped on this very day. We would like to give one more shoutout to our podcast last week with Mark Wick, which had to do with mental health, depression, and suicide. It’s definitely worth a listen, especially if you or a loved one are struggling.

NMU Series Recap

NMU vs MTU Saturday, January 23, 2021

MTU vs NMU Monday, January 25, 2021

Well, we thought we were going to play Lake State this weekend in conference play, but ultimately we ended up playing Northern Michigan. The way we got here is certainly interesting to say the least.

The Huskies were in the building on Friday and heard that the series had been cancelled about an hour before the puck was supposed to drop for their series against the Lakers. Not long after that, they found out Northern was scheduled for a home-and-home.

The Wildcats were on their way down to Huntsville, but when they made it to about Escanaba they found out that the Chargers weren’t able to play either. One thing led to another, and the Wildcats found themselves playing the Huskies by the seat of their pants this weekend.

Moving onto the series itself, Tech pretty much took care of business the way we’d expect them to against a lowly Wildcats team. On Saturday, Sinclair had a great game en route to his second shutout as a Husky. That game also saw new transfer Tristan Ashbrook score his first goal for Michigan Tech.

Monday saw the Huskies needing to come from behind after an early first period goal from the Wildcats, but their first goal would prove to be their only after the Huskies put up 4, including an empty netter for Tyrell Buckley’s first goal as a Husky.

BGSU Season

Our friend Drew Evans helps take over here to discuss how the Bowling Green “Fighting Goulds” are doing. Apparently, Gavin’s dinged up with an upper body injury and whether or not he plays against Tech is in question.

Bowling Green up to this point has had a very solid season and that’s very much reflected in their #8 national ranking at current. The Falcons are a team that has three players that have 100+ points in their careers, several guys that are at point-a-game pace, have the highest corsi in the nation and are overall a veteran-heavy squad that isn’t afraid to throw pucks at the net and see what happens.

However, over the past couple weeks, Drew has expressed some concern. While they’ve still been dumpstering teams, they seem to be slowing down in the shot department and he’s unsure what that could mean against a defensively-loaded team like Michigan Tech. Perhaps, things aren’t going quite as smoothly as they were in the beginning of the season. Having such a veteran-heavy squad, BG’s mentality seems to be “win now” because of how many question marks will be there next year.

This season will likely be the first test both teams have had in a good while, so it’s time to put up or shut up for both squads. It should be can’t-miss hockey.

BGSU-MTU Goaltending Matchup

On both sides of the puck this weekend are some really good goaltenders. Fans of goaltending should also be in for a treat this week as the Pietila/Sinclair tandem take on the Eric Dop and Zach Rose tandem. Sinclair’s stats are skewed a little bit by a bad effort against Bemidji, but other than that he’s been nothing but rock solid.

Drew says you can pretty much guarantee fans will see both Rose and Dop play this weekend. Joe Shawhan’s move between the pipes will remain to be seen, but look for him to make a similar play.

Photo credit: Shane Cruthers

College Hockey News Power 16

CHN’s been doing their best to do an eye test on who the 16 best teams in college hockey are, and last week the Huskies cracked the list at #16. Last week, their blurb about Tech read something to the extent of “How good is Michigan Tech exactly? If it ever plays again, we’ll let you know.” The Huskies remain at #16, but our blurb has since changed.

NCAA Selection Process

Drew asks the team what they think the NCAA selection process should be, but since we’ve already had this discussion, we threw the UNO reverse card on our guest and asked him how he thinks the tournament should be organized. In a year that offers little in the way of stability or sense, Drew gives a fairly balanced and fair selection process suggestion. Listen in to the podcast to hear his insights and suggestions.

Listener Questions

Our newest patron, Andy Bordeau, asks what we think Jamie Phillips has brought to this year’s goaltending and what has to be done to keep him around on the staff. Phillips is currently working on a Master’s Degree and is on the staff as a volunteer goalie coach. Overall, it’s not a stretch to say that we’ve seen an improvement in goaltending up and down the line. The guys are really resonating with a position-specific coach not many other schools get to train with, and they get the added benefit of the fact that this coach has gone to the pros and can show them what it takes to get there. Goaltenders this year have been really solid positionally and have shown tremendous growth, so hopefully this continues and Phillips can stick around for a number of years.

Jamie Phillips (@JamiePhillips30) | Twitter
Photo credit: Jamie Phillips (@jamiephillips) on Twitter

Our second question comes from my former roommate, Patrick Koro. Great guy! My old buddy Pat was wondering who our favorite play-by-play voice in the league is other than Dirk. There’s quite a few guys that do pretty well, and we discuss many of them but most of us selected Harrison Watt at Ferris.

On a personal note, Harrison has done a lot for me personally and professionally since finishing school. Aside from the fact that his broadcasts kick ass, I owe him a lot. Who knows, maybe we’ll see him calling the pros one day.

Speaking of Harrison, he also now runs his own blog called Puck Chops, mainly centered around announcing on the road and finding the best spots to eat after games. It’s just as hilarious as it is informative. Check it out here.

Our friend Harrison will be our special guest when we preview our Ferris series. Be sure to get your questions into our discord server, that episode is sure to be great.

This is also the segment where you can find out why we named the episode “Mega Lasagna.” That’s all we have to say. Listen to find out why!

Dominic Hennig

Dominic Hennig is the newest hire from the CCHA offices to be the Director of Strategic Communication and Brand Advancement. Hennig is a Ferris alum, who previously was the Director of Broadcasting and Communication for the Flint Firebirds of the OHL. It’s exciting to see the League start to get their ducks in a row on this matter and that they are selecting league-grown talent. Perhaps he would be a great podcast guest one day.

Trivia

This week’s trivia question centered around Huskies that have played games at least one NHL game since 2002. More trivia questions were asked, but they got cut for time and are only available to patrons this week. Some of the questions were really tough, and I looked like a scrub.

Predictions

Who doesn’t love speculation? Tech’s got a game, it’s going to be a big one and you know what we do best. Tune in to hear our predictions for this weekend, and guest Drew puts his two cents in as well!

Cut For Time

This week’s cut content for patrons is a touch over 20 minutes long. This week, the crew covers the Michigan Athletics Pause, Joe Shawhan Hour highlights, additional trivia and more! Subscribe below to get access to this content.

Learn More

For additional information and more episode liner notes, check out our episode overview on Tech Hockey Guide. To make sure we can afford all our fancy equipment we purchased for the podcast and the THG website in general, please check out our patreon page and consider joining. Patrons at our Black Level or above receive an authentic MTU jersey patch and access to extra podcast content including extended versions of our other episodes. This week’s extended version is nearly 93 minutes.
Follow us on twitter at ChasingMacPod and you can submit questions through our email address, ChasingMac@techhockeyguide.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate and review which will help us reach more people, and tell your friends. Please check out Jonathan Zamaites series previews every Friday and Mike Anleitner’s Old Dog in Texas column every Wednesday. Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles on Tuesdays. As always, special thanks to our patron saint Doc McResin for his generous donation to get this thing running, we hope you enjoy. Also, thanks to The Thank You Notes for all the bumpers in today’s episode. If you like what you hear, check them out at thethankyounotes.bandcamp.com

Matt Cavender
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Matt Cavender graduated from Tech in 2018 and is a former President of Mitch's Misfits, serving two terms. Matt serves on the Tech Hockey Guide staff as Editor in Chief. He currently works as a Digital Marketing Specialist in Grand Rapids, MI

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