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Harder work earns SCSU split
 Media Credit: Blair Schlichte SCSU defender Jeff Finger assists goalie Jake Moreland in blocking a shot from MSU forward Shane Joseph on Saturday night at the National Hockey Center. Moreland finished with 31 saves for the night, which contributed to 7-2 win over the Mavericks. Huskies lost Friday in Mankato with a score of 7-6.
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Although the Huskies racked up a season-high 13 goals over the weekend, they still only came out with a split in a home-and-home series with Mankato.
The Huskies were beaten by the Mavericks 7-6 on Friday night at the Midwest Wireless Civic Center, which marked their first loss to Mankato in the program’s Division I history. However, the Huskies were able to rebound with a barrage of goals and some better defense in Saturday night’s 7-2 victory at home.
On Friday, the Huskies had trouble with the one thing they wanted to avoid coming into the series: penalties. Combined, they spent 41 minutes in the box from 11 penalties.
“It’s the same old story,” Dahl said. “Either we’re going to stop taking penalties or we’re going to keep losing games. It’s not rocket science.”
Although the Huskies were short-handed for much of the game, they still managed to find a way to put the puck in the net.
Matt Hendricks scored the first goal of the game on a power play 2:31 into the game, but since the Mavs hadn’t won a game yet this season when they scored the first goal, it was only fitting that they would respond right back with two power play goals by Cole Bassett and Adam Gerlach.
Then Ryan Malone, who finished with two goals and an assist, tied the game up at 2-2 with 34 seconds remaining in the period. His fancy stick-handling around MSU defender Steven Johns near the crease, beat freshman goaltender Kyle Nixon, who was filling in for a sick Jason Jensen. Malone added another goal 6:46 into the second period on a rebound from a missed one-timer by Tim Conboy. Joseph struck back just a minute later to tie it back up.
Hendricks got a second power play goal of the night off of a deflection on another one-timer by Conboy to give the Huskies the lead.
Mankato would then get four more goals in the final 15 minutes, including two more by Joseph, who finished off a hat trick. Although the Huskies would battle back with two consecutive goals by Jonathan Lehun and Dave Iannazzo (first goal this season), they wouldn’t have enough juice to finish it.
“I don’t know what was going on,” Malone said. “There were pucks going in from every angle.”
“That’s one of the more wild games that I’ve been involved in,” said Mankato head coach Troy Jutting. “If it was up to me (the first win against SCSU) would be by four or five goals so I wouldn’t have heart palpitations halfway through the third period.”
The third period comeback was only one of many for the Mavericks so far this season.
“One thing about this Mankato team is that they don’t give up and they really work their fannies off, so I’ve got a lot of respect for them,” Dahl said. “Jutty (Troy Jutting) said that he really likes coaching this team because they work really hard, which makes it fun to come to the rink. Win or lose, if you work hard you can feel pretty good about things.”
Dahl mentioned that he didn’t think some of his players were working as hard, which led to some changes in the lineup and a big pregame talk Saturday afternoon before the rematch at the NHC.
“I said, ‘I’ve coached college hockey for 24 years and there’s not one time when I can remember when I’ve wanted to see a guy do bad,’” Dahl said, “‘Do you honestly think that I’d tell you you’re not working hard if you were. I’m telling you some of you guys are not working hard and you can accept it one of two ways. You can get defensive about it or you can say ‘I better get my butt in gear.’”
The Huskies chose the second option.
Senior goalie Jake Moreland, who finished with 31 saves, got the Huskies confidence up in the first period when he made numerous acrobatic saves.
After a scoreless first period, freshman Konrad Reeder put the Huskies on the board with his first collegiate goal when he stole an arrant Maverick pass and knocked goalie Jason Jensen’s water bottle off the net with a glove-side wrister.
Then the SCSU power play, which has been outstanding as of late (41.7 percent over last four games) took over.
12:18 into the second period, Malone had the puck up top and found Cullen at the right post. Cullen slung it across the crease to Motzko at the left post, who poked it in. Just a minute later, Finger added another power play goal on a wrister through traffic, before Mankato junior Dana Sorensen put the Mavs on the board.
41 seconds into the third period Motzko scored again on a short-handed unassisted goal. Lehun added a power play goal to put the Huskies up 5-1.
Peter Szabo then found himself open near the crease and received a perfect centering pass from Joe Jensen, which he put in the net for his first goal of the season. Szabo, a sophomore from Slovakia, found himself on the WCHA All-Rookie team last season with his outstanding play, but has had only three assists up until his one goal, two assist performance Saturday.
Szabo and Dahl had a private conference before the game about his play.
“Probably by his own admission, (Szabo) would say he’s been playing perimeter hockey this year and tonight he got his legs and showed a little speed. We had a heart-to-heart before the game and it’s amazing what happens when a guy works hard,” Dahl said.
Szabo led a very productive third line, along with two freshmen in Jensen and Reeder at the wings, to five points. Up to this point, the second and third line had been shuffled around vigorously to try and find production. This is something Szabo wasn’t used to after Doyle, Iannazzo and Szabo, were very consistent as a freshman line. Both Doyle and Iannazzo were taken out of the lineup after Friday.
“When you’re a player you just want to click with somebody and you don’t like to change players all the time, but we had a lot of players injured and coach was trying to get guys to click. I just couldn’t do it until now,” Szabo said.
Later in the period MSUM’s Grant Stevenson added one more goal and Cullen scored on a nice wraparound, with Malone in the net after being shoved by defender Nate Metcalf. The Huskies were also successful in cutting their penalty minutes almost in half.
“I had a problem with maybe two of our penalties,” Dahl said. “We just worked harder and the kids really wanted to play better than they did last night. They were really disappointed with last night’s game.”
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