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MARQUETTE — It may sound unusual and even surprising, but the Northern Michigan University hockey team will host CCHA frontrunner St. Thomas this weekend at the Berry Events Center.

The conference season is at its halfway point with the Wildcats at 7-11-2 overall and 5-7 in the CCHA and a dozen games, all CCHA contests, remaining in the regular season.

NMU has 15 points, a tie for sixth place with Bowling Green State, while suburban Twin Cities’ Tommies are 11-10-1 overall and 9-5 in league games, good for 27 points. While St. Thomas has played two more conference games than Northern, even perfect three-point games from those games in hand would only make up half of the Wildcats’ deficit to the Tommies.

From left, Northern Michigan University’s Kristof Papp, Artem Shlaine, Andre Ghantous and Colby Enns celebrate Ghantous’ late first-period goal in the Wildcats’ exhibition college hockey game played against Michigan Tech at the Berry Events Center in Marquette on Jan. 6. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

This weekend’s games are at 7:07 p.m. today and 6:07 p.m. Saturday. They will be broadcast on radio station WUPT 100.3 FM The Point, while fans can also follow @NMUHockey on X (formerly Twitter), to get updates leading up to the games and for live updates during games. Or fans can visit the NMU athletics website at nmuwildcats.com and look under the hockey schedule for links to ticket information, a series preview, live statistics, live video and live audio.

NMU fell flat in last weekend’s second pair of games in the Cappo Cup series that is contested between Northern and Lake Superior State, with the Wildcats losing at Sault Ste. Marie 5-1 and 5-2. The Wildcats had a three-goal lead following a sweep in Marquette in early November after 6-4 and 4-3 wins, but last weekend gave the total goals to the Lakers, 17-13.

Surprisingly, NMU scored the first goal in each game last weekend and had a 1-0 lead after the first period each night. Senior Michael Colella had that goal on Friday night as part of a two-point weekend, while Reilly Funk notched the opening goal Saturday night.

The other Saturday goal for Northern was scored by Kevin Marx Noren, his first goal in seven games.

Lake State’s Evan Bushy earned both CCHA Defenseman of the Week and Freshman of the Week for his efforts in the series, according to this weekend’s series preview prepared by NMU Sports Information.

While playing three more games than NMU, LSSU improved to 8-6-1 in the CCHA for 24 points, good for third place but only three points behind St. Thomas. Sitting between them is second-place Bemidji State at 8-6 and 25 points.

While the Wildcats have struggled to a 1-9-1 record this season on the road, they have a more-than-solid 6-2-1 mark at home, where they’ve outscored opponents 29-20 and have a 20.7% success rate on power plays and 86.7% on penalty kills, including stopping 19 of their past 20 shorthanded situations over a half-dozen games.

Among current Northern skaters, captain Andre Ghantous has a goal and four assists for the most career points vs. the Tommies, while Colella has three goals against them and Kristof Papp is 57.1% in faceoff wins vs. St. Thomas.

A sweep by the Tommies on Nov. 3-4 is among the Wildcats’ road struggles with scores of 4-2 and 6-1, but their most recent game played in Marquette was an 8-3 NMU win on Oct. 10, 2021.

St. Thomas is coming off a 4-3 and 3-1 home sweep of Michigan Tech last week in an unusual Thursday-Saturday series. And the Tommies have similar home-road splits as the Wildcats, going 4-7 on the road while 7-3-1 at home.

After last weekend’s sweep, St. Thomas’ Jake Sibell was honored as CCHA Goaltender of the Week after making 27 saves in the Saturday contest. Liam Malmquist had a goal as he and Grant Docter each had two assists in the series.

For the season, Lucas Wahlin had nine goals and 13 assists for 22 points, while Mack Byers is at nine goals and five assists for 14 points.

Sibell, with a 5-2 record, .946 saves percentage and 1.61 goals-against average, has split duties in net with Aaron Trotter, who is 4-3 with a .912 saves percentage and 2.72 goals-against average.

Wahlin has had the most success in their careers against Northern with three goals and an assist, while Byers and Luke Manning also have three goals.

NMU SI cited Wildcats head coach Grant Potulny as saying his team needs to shore up special teams play. The Tommies have struggled in that area vs. Northern, going 0 of 20 on the power play over the past two seasons while having a 71.4% penalty kill last season.

Like many teams, scoring early is important to St. Thomas’ success as the Tommies are 9-0-1 when scoring first and only 3-10 when opponents score first. They are also 6-0-1 when leading after the first period and 9-1-1 when ahead after two periods, but only 1-6 when trailing after one period and 2-9 when trailing after two.

Northern won their first three games ever in the short history of the St. Thomas program but have since dropped the three most recent games.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.