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Success as a whole: Despite WCHA title game loss, head coach Grant Potulny reflects on strides made by Northern Michigan University hockey team

Northern Michigan University’s Troy Loggins, front, skates the puck into the offensive zone as Michigan Tech’s Greyson Reitmeier pursues in the third period of the WCHA playoff championship game at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Saturday. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

“I haven’t been in a building with that much energy ever, I don’t think.” — Grant Potulny, NMU head hockey coach, on the buzz in the Berry Events Center for the WCHA Championship game

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MARQUETTE — Saturday’s loss to Michigan Tech in the WCHA Championship game was as tough to take for the Northern Michigan University hockey team as it was for its loyal fans.

But as disappointing as that defeat was, the season overall was still successful.

The Wildcats reached 25 wins for the first time since the 2001-02 campaign, and it was their first 20-win season since making the NCAA tournament in 2010.

Winning two playoff series — four games in all — were their first home playoff wins at the Berry Events Center since 2012.

NMU also had six players earn WCHA awards, with goalie Atte Tolvanen named Goaltender of the Year and Grant Potulny earning Coach of the Year honors in his rookie season as a head coach.

“There’s so many positives,” Potulny said. “So many great memories. The start of the year and the joy on their faces when we beat Wisconsin in overtime (in Green Bay, Wisconsin). You get a couple of big wins at home against Tech and (Minnesota State) Mankato.

“Then you can kind of see the ball moving forward and the momentum is going downhill. Now you see a little consistency. I’ll never forget the first road trip when we went to Ferris State and we swept them.

“That’s what you’re supposed to do. You supposed to go on the road and try to win two games. But the joy on the bus on the way home, that was fun.

“Then the second half of the year when you get a chance to be in first place for an extended period of time and chase the MacNaughton Cup right to the end.

“Then some overtime victories against Bowling Green in the regular season and the playoffs. Then that atmosphere on Saturday.

“I’ve been fortunate to be in some really great environments, whether it’s World Juniors or a championship game or it’s national championships. But that moment (Saturday) when you’re standing on the bench and you look around, I haven’t been in a building with that much energy ever, I don’t think.

“Those kind of things as a coach, you feel really proud and you feel happy for your players. Because they worked and worked and we pushed and we pulled. They were just resilient and were mentally tough.

“As disappointing as that last outcome of the game was, I thought we played well and I thought we played hard. I’m sad to see the seniors leave. We’ll miss them dearly, but I think we’re going to have a very good team again next year.

“I think now they’ve tasted it and when you get a little taste, you become very hungry for more success.”

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the Wildcats’ season was their dominance at home.

In the previous season, Northern didn’t get its first home win until mid-January. This year, the team was an outstanding 17-5, including a 13-2 mark in the regular season.

When asked about the key to that success, Potulny said it was a combination of speed, understanding how to play at their home Olympic-sized ice sheet and just playing consistently with five players.

“There’s a couple different ways to be hard to play against,” he said. “I think we’re challenging to play against because we play fast and some teams in the offensive end, they spread their guys and they puck protect so well that you can’t get it back.

“We play together as a group of five very well. Our three forwards in particular are always moving, there’s always triangulation and then you have active defensemen. It becomes hard to figure out where you’re supposed to go and it becomes hard to defend that.

“You start winning shift after shift and the best they can do is advance the puck out of the zone and get a change. I think we became very good at understanding our rink and how to generate offense here and understanding areas that are not dangerous.

“Even if people have the puck, they aren’t dangerous there. I also think our unique building — it’s a fact and we’ll continue to recruit to our rink just like Ferris State recruits to their rink. It’s a little bit smaller and they recruit guys that can be successful at home.

“Because as a coach if you want to be in the conversation at the end of the year to win the league, you have to make sure that you get a game on the road and you win your home games. We did that this year.”

Looking back at his roster, Potulny said there weren’t any surprise performances or anything like that. He just said everybody stepped up when they had to.

“Guys that I expected to have good years did,” he said. “I expected Robbie (Payne) to have a good year. I expected (Troy) Loggins to have a good year. I expected Atte to have a good year and (Adam) Rockwood to have a good year. I expected Phil (Beaulieu) to have a good year.

“I didn’t know Jordan (Klimek) and Darien (Craighead) and Ryan (Black) very well. I thought they had outstanding years. I thought they really elevated their game.

“Joe (Nardi) as a freshman was probably playing higher in the lineup than he should have and that’s no disrespect to him. He’s really going to blossom and he’s had to play very challenging minutes. You don’t see many freshmen in college hockey that can play and have to play the pivot position that high on teams.

“Maybe on teams in the bottom half of the league, you have to play that high. Joe had to play that way kind of from Day 1. We started them and tried to hide him to start, but he was such an important player to us that we had to move him up the lineup. He handled that very well.

“I also think Robbie (Fosdick) had a very good year as a freshman. I thought James (Vermeulen) had a good year. For the most part, I can’t look at a guy and say ‘Boy, I was disappointed in his year.’ I really think that the majority of guys had really good seasons.”

As far as his graduating class of Payne, Klimek, Zach Diamantoni and Filip Starzynski goes, Potulny praised them for being able to handle not only a new coach but a completely new style of play during their last season as Wildcats.

“I can’t even imagine being a senior to have a new coach come in and kind of change everything,” Potulny said. “Those guys have been very important players up to that point in their careers. You always want to have a great senior year and there was no selfishness at all out of them.

“Probably the king of that was Robbie. He had a ton of goals at Christmas. We felt that maybe we needed (to) change the look at our power play and some of our lines to become a better team. That maybe affected him negatively in personal stats and productivity, and he didn’t bat an eye. He just said that I want to win.

“Zach was kind of the Swiss Army knife. He played center, left wing and right wing. He played he first line and the third line, the power play, penalty kill and sometimes not on the power play. He just took it in stride.

“Jordan had a great year and I think it was a blow to our team when Starzynski got hurt. He kind of solidified that position as a fourth-line center. Losing him was tough.

“I can’t say enough about those guys. We talked about it Saturday and there might be teams that go farther, but there will never be a class that has a bigger place in my heart than those four guys and I’m going to miss them dearly.”

The large amount of success this season came as a surprise to a lot of people, especially preseason voters who picked NMU to finish seventh in the WCHA. But Potulny said that polls didn’t matter to him and that he has high expectations heading into next season.

“I don’t know how much the guys look at polls,” he said. “Maybe they do. I don’t know. I laugh every year when the polls come out. The coaches and media vote on it and all of us are all wrong at the end of the year most of the time.

“I think it was vindication that we are a good team. I think that was part of the inconsistency early in the year. To get to that point where you believe that you’re a team where you go into the weekend believing that you’re going to win two games. In the back half of the year, we’re 14-5 and I think that’s closer to what (we) should expect going into next year.

“(We were) 11-10 at Christmas. I think that was to be expected, to be honest. We had a tough schedule and we were on the road a lot. New coaches, new staff, new system and new terminology. All of those things you kind of have to go through.

“We don’t have to do that next year. The majority of guys will know. You go up to the board and start naming off the drills we’re going to do and the guys get going. It’ll take a little time for the young guys.

“The challenge is you don’t just start where you finish. It was very hard to get to that point. The challenge is to going to be ready and get ready to work again. There’s no secret recipe for success.

“You just have to keep working and you’ve got to pay a price. If we pay a price, we’ll be successful. Like any team, if we just think we’re going to pick up where we left off, there’s going to be challenges.”

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.

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