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Bounce-back plan works

Editor’s note: Mining Journal sports writer Ryan Stieg accompanied the Northern Michigan University hockey team on its trip to the Great Lakes Invitational in Detroit where the Wildcats played games Tuesday and Wednesdday. Today is his report on the final day, preparing for playing against Michigan State University.

DETROIT – The Northern Michigan University hockey team got dealt a disappointing 3-2 loss by the University of Michigan on Tuesday at the Great Lakes Invitational in Detroit.

It was an unfortunate outcome as the Wildcats listened to what head coach Walt Kyle had preached in his pregame speech and outshot Michigan 37-34.

Goaltender Atte Tolvanen also had a strong night making some nice saves and keeping the Wolverines from turning the game into a potential rout in the first period.

As a result, Northern landed in the third-place game Wednesday afternoon against Michigan State, which had fallen to Michigan Tech in overtime the previous afternoon.

To prepare for the game, Kyle had an optional morning skate for the players who had played against Michigan, while focusing on getting Wednesday’s starting goalie, Mathias Israelsson, some action before the game.

“With the afternoon game, our skate was at 8 or 8:15 this morning, so only the guys that did not play last night had to be there,” Kyle said.

“I thought Atte (Tolvanen) was fine, so it had nothing to do with that. It would’ve been one thing if Atte had pitched a shutout last night. If it was something like that, we’d probably go back to him. In these nonleague games, it’s a great chance to get Izzy (Israelsson) in there.”

A concern for the Wildcats on Tuesday night was the struggling power play. Northern had a chance to tie the game late in the third period on a five-minute man advantage, but couldn’t get it done.

“Late in the game, we were tired and we just made bad decisions,” Kyle said. “We’ve got to do a better job of getting the puck in the zone and get set up. Another thing is that we lost a ton of power-play draws, which is a big deal. I thought that was a big factor.”

Despite the loss, Kyle still thought highly of the team’s play against a nationally ranked Michigan team.

“We played good last night,” he said. “One thing as a coach is that you can waste your time by having your mood be dictated by the result of the game. What you really have to do is evaluate the quality of play.

“We did good last night. They were the No. 10 team in the country on their home rink and we outchanced them and outshot them.”

After the team checked out of the Renaissance Hotel and packed their bags on the bus, they made the short jaunt to Joe Louis Arena.

Though the ride over and the hallways of the arena were quiet, inside the locker room music blasted and when the Wildcats came out for warm-ups, rapper DMX blared into the tunnel with defenseman Brock Maschmeyer singing along as he walked to the ice.

When Northern returned to the locker room, Kyle made a brief speech, emphasizing the importance of taking lots of shots like they did against Michigan.

“One thing that I did like last night and something we’ve got to get better at is to not pass up shots,” he said.

The Wildcats got off to a bad start as MSU scored just a little more than a minute into the game. Spartan Joe Cox knocked the puck out of the air with his hand and beat Israelsson to his glove-side, which the Wildcats goalie said was due to him not “tracking the puck good enough.”

Northern had three chances to tie the game in the first period with the best coming when forward Dominik Shine weaved through the MSU defense.

Both teams had scoring chances in the second as MSU picked up two loose pucks, but the Spartans were denied by Israelsson. For the Wildcats, Shine had another breakaway chance and defenseman Zach Urban shot’s almost got deflected into the net.

After Kyle preached about the power play after the previous night’s game and before this one, the Wildcats finally came through on the man advantage during the third.

Northern failed on its first two power plays in the period, but after MSU was whistled for boarding, Shine broke through for the Wildcats.

In overtime, Northern got a lucky break to pick up the win. A shot by Ryan Trenz went off of Zach Diamantoni’s skate and went straight to Robbie Payne, who beat Hildebrand to his blocker-side.

Payne laughed about the goal after the game, saying he needed it because he played “awful.” Payne is also from Gaylord and he was happy to score in front of a large group of his family and friends.

Israelsson finished with 24 saves for his second win of the season in only his second start. He didn’t like how he played early on, but thought that he improved as the game went along.

“I started off pretty nervous and kind of shaky, but after a while, I got into it and made some easy saves,” he said. “I stopped being nervous and got into a rhythm in the game.”

Inside the locker room afterward, Kyle addressed the team with praise and criticism. He also gave out the player of the game award, which is a hard hat from the Puckheads (a group of Wildcat fans) to Trenz.

“Guys, right now, that could be a springboard for us,” he said. “What I want to tell you guys is this. We have to find night in and night out a good performance.

“Last night, we were really good. Tonight, we played, they are a bad hockey team, just so you know. They have five f***ing wins and 13 losses, but we were not good. Mathias had to keep us in the f***king game, but we were resilient.

“I’ve told you before that good teams have the ability to win when they’re bad. There’s a lot of guys in here that I was really encouraged with their performance last night.

“As a group, we didn’t do that tonight. We’ve got some really tough games coming up. You’ve got to promise me when we get home that we’re going to work really hard. We’re going to get condition level where it needs to be.

“We always do the player of the game. Mathias, you could get it again, but I’m not going to give it to you. Robbie, you can’t get it. You got the winning goal, but you weren’t the player of the game.

“The player of the game tonight, and it was his best game of the year, clearly in my opinion, was Trenzy.”

When asked how he would assess the trip as a whole, Kyle felt good about what his squad accomplished over the course of the tournament.

“It was good,” he said. “We played two Big Ten teams, both times basically in their building. I thought we played really well last night. I knew we’d be fatigued today with the short turnaround time with the evening game to the afternoon game.”

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

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