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Big series at Berry: Northern Michigan University hockey team hosts league-leading Minnesota State this weekend

Northern Michigan University’s Philip Beaulieu takes a shot during the Wildcats’ game against Alaska-Anchorage at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Nov. 16. (Journal file photo by Trinity Carey)

MARQUETTE — The weather is supposed to be ice cold with the temperature hovering just above zero degrees, but the Northern Michigan University hockey team’s opponent is coming in red hot.

The Wildcats (13-10, 12-4 WCHA) host No. 7 Minnesota State-Mankato, who has won five of its last six games. The Mavericks (19-6-1, 14-4) also reside atop the WCHA with 42 points, six in front of third-place Northern, though NMU has two games in hand.

A sweep would pull NMU even with the Minnesota version of MSU, possibly for first place, as Northern tries to nail down home ice in the first round of the WCHA playoffs.

It won’t be easy to get a sweep, though, let alone one victory as the Mavericks are one of the most complete teams in the nation. MSU is No. 5 in offense, No. 6 in defense and is also strong on special teams, so the Wildcats have their work cut out for them.

NMU head coach Grant Potulny thinks the Mavericks are like his team in a way and can keep up with you no matter what your game plan is.

Northern Michigan University's Philip Beaulieu races for the puck during the Wildcats' game against Ferris State on Dec. 14. (Journal photo by Trinity Carey)

“I think they’re very similar to us,” he said. “They have some high-end players. They have some depth and they’re getting great goaltending. I think that they can play any way you want.

“If you want to play a speed game, they can play that way. They’ve got some heaviness to them that they can play in the tough areas and I expect two very good games.”

“I think what makes them good is that they have a solid lineup of above-average players,” NMU defenseman Phil Beaulieu said. “They don’t have superstars, they have (Marc) Michaelis and some other really good players, but they have great depth with above-average players. When you have a bunch of players like that working together, it creates a deadly formula.”

Even though Minnesota State is good in all areas, Potulny said his team isn’t going to change who they are just to compete with the Mavericks.

“We’re not doing anything special to prepare for them that we wouldn’t do for anybody else,” he said. “We’ve seen the best teams in college hockey. We’ve seen St. Cloud (State) and we’ve seen Cornell. Michigan State just swept the Gophers and we’ve seen Notre Dame. So I think we’re prepared to play a good hockey team and that’s part of the value of going through that tough stretch to start the year is that our guys should have confidence.

“The other thing is those games were on the road, lots of them. Now we have our confidence and we’ve played well at home. We’re looking forward to having one of those really good teams in our building when we’re also firing on all cylinders.”

Another good thing for the Wildcats is that they seemed to have improved since the start of the season. They’re just one spot below MSU in team defense and close behind them on the penalty kill (eighth compared to 12th nationally). Not only that, but NMU is on a six-game winning streak and is coming off a bye week, so it should be well rested.

“It’s really challenging to go to Alaska with the travel, especially for us because you’ve got to land in Minneapolis and bus back,” Potulny said. “It’s more challenging that you’re up there for two weeks.

“Being up there just for a weekend, your clock really doesn’t flip over fully yet, so you can come back and get back to Eastern time. Being up there for two weeks, it is challenging and real and we took a couple days off last week. I thought coming back into it that we were very good in the back half of the week and we were very good again yesterday.”

A subplot to this weekend is that former Wildcats goalie Mathias Israelsson is making his return to Marquette as a member of Minnesota State after spending the past couple of seasons splitting time with Northern netminder Atte Tolvanen.

Israelsson was the Mavericks’ starter to begin the season, but he’s now the No. 2 man behind Dryden McKay, so the question is whether he’ll play against his former teammates. If he does, though, the Wildcats will ready and eager to take him down.

“I’ll be interested to see if he plays and I really hope he does,” Beaulieu said. “It creates a lot of good animosity. I love Mathias and I’m happy for him that he got to go for another opportunity.

“Good for him, but when he comes back in our house and he’s playing, you bet we’re going to go after him. Maybe exploit some of those weaknesses we saw in practice, I don’t know. It’ll be funny and maybe chirp him a little bit. I think it’ll bring a great competitiveness to the game that’s already on it. They’re a top team and we’re trying to catch them. It’d be great to see him in net.”

Potentially facing a former teammate isn’t the focus of the Wildcats, though. It’s the Mavericks as a whole and Potulny feels good about where his squad is at with two key home series coming up. The following weekend second-place Bowling Green State enters the Berry Events Center for a pair of games.

“I feel very confident about our team,” he said. “I feel very good. Our depth is getting to where we hoped it would be. Some of the freshmen that are playing important minutes are starting to look like the guys we recruited. I think that our top-end guys have found their game and we’ve won over the last little bit with team efforts.

“You for sure have to have a team effort from everybody in these types of games. Big-time players play big time in big-time games and we need our big-time players to be really important this weekend and they have to be better than the other team’s big-time players. Usually at the end of the day, that’s who wins the game.”

Beaulieu also sees these next two series against MSU and Bowling Green as an opportunity for the Wildcats to make up for their slow start and not only keep pace in the standings, but climb the national Pairwise rankings as well.

“I’m a little sad about the way we started the year against some of those top-ranked teams and I think this is a really good chance for us to have another shot at that,” he said. “Catching a top-ranked team and showing that we’re above a top-20 team. We should be in the 15s or maybe the 10s somewhere and I really believe that.

“I think this is a great chance for us with Mankato and Bowling Green next week to kind of redeem ourselves.”

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

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