MARQUETTE – The Northern Michigan University Wildcats needed to get a win Friday night against their archrival to the north and west for both a confidence boost and to start catching up in the WCHA standings.

Despite building a two-goal lead early in the third period, the Wildcats had to settle for a 3-3 draw against Michigan Tech in front of a packed house at the Berry Events Center. NMU, which now stands 9-6-5 overall and 5-6-4 in the WCHA, is on a seven-game winless streak.

A bright spot for the Wildcats was that sophomore Mathias Dahlstrom was back in net after missing the last four games due to injury and he went toe to toe with Tech’s Hobey Baker candidate Jamie Phillips.

“This was a hard game,” NMU head coach Walt Kyle said. “I thought we competed like heck. I didn’t like the way we lost it in the third.

“We just took some dumb penalties. I think Mathias did fine. He had to make some saves and their guy had to make some saves.

“Both power plays are really dangerous and we had a number of opportunities to score. Our power play was good, but the same thing happened like last week. We had a five-minute-major power play and we had some great chances, but we didn’t finish it.”

Huskies head coach Mel Pearson wasn’t surprised at the kind of game it ended up being.

“It was a typical Michigan Tech-Northern Michigan game,” he said. “It had a little bit of everything. There was some good hitting and some nice goals.

“There was also some great goaltending by both guys. It was a hard-fought battle and they (NMU) are a much better team than their record. We’re very fortunate to get out of here with a tie.”

The Wildcats got on the scoreboard first when defenseman Brock Maschmeyer fired a rocket past Phillips on the power play.

Tech quickly answered, though, when Tanner Kero notched his ninth goal just 33 seconds later.

It looked like the two teams would head to the lockerroom tied 1-1, but Maschmeyer struck again with nine seconds left before intermission. The sophomore roofed a shot over Phillips’ glove and just under the crossbar to put the Wildcats up 2-1.

When asked about his goals, Maschmeyer was modest in his assessment.

“I have to give credit to my forwards for getting me the puck,” he said. “It’s really nice to have a little bit more connection at this point in the season and it looks like it keeps getting better.”

Tech dominated the second period as the Huskies peppered Dahlstrom. However, the sophomore stood tall and kept the Huskies off the board. NMU winger Gerard Hanson also made a key play after losing his stick. He dove at the puck to block a shot with his body during a Northern penalty kill to stifle a good scoring chance for Tech.

NMU had trouble generating much offense in the frame and were down 20-12 in shots after two periods.

But the Wildcats still managed to grab their two-goal lead early in the third thanks to a bang-bang play when Dominik Shine beat Phillips on his blocker side.

The goal was the Wildcats’ second on the power play and rough play continued for the rest of the game.

Two major penalties were called after that and Tech used one of them, a five-minute kneeing call on captain Ryan Kesti, to get its two final goals in the final seven minutes, the first by Tyler Heinonen and the second from Shane Hanna.

“Getting those two goals back was huge,” Pearson said. “I think one of the key parts of the game was when they had that five-minute power play and we didn’t give up any more goals there. That was critical and it gave us a chance to get back in the game and then we were fortunate to find a way to beat Dahlstrom.”

The game then went into overtime as both teams had good chances to score but didn’t. NMU’s Robbie Payne had a last-second breakaway that almost went in, but Phillips caught it with his skate and the game ended in a draw.

The Wildcats play Tech again tonight, this time in Houghton. Game time is 7:37 p.m. at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena.

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 246. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.