MARQUETTE – If there’s one word to describe how the Northern Michigan University hockey team has played this season, it’s consistent.

The Wildcats (10-10-6, 7-7-4 WCHA) are sitting at .500 and have been that way almost all year. That’s good in that it helps keep Northern in the middle of the WCHA standings, but NMU still hasn’t completed a sweep this season. This weekend presents another great opportunity to pull that off.

Northern takes on Alaska-Anchorage, which is just two points behind it in the league. The Seawolves (10-13-3, 7-11-2 WCHA) may be sitting below NMU, but the Wildcats won’t be taking them lightly as they try to lock down home ice in the WCHA playoffs.

“I wouldn’t count out anybody,” NMU head coach Walt Kyle said. “Our league right now, literally from No. 3 to 10, is the same. There’s not much difference.

“It’s who’s been banged up, who’s found a way to score goals on occasion. Everybody in that group can beat anyone on any given night. It’s really a tough, tight league.

“(Anchorage is) a good, hard-working team. They play in an Olympic rink like us, so the rink itself is not going to bother them at all. They’ve got great goaltending in (Olivier) Mantha. (Blake) Tatchell is one of the best players in the league. They’re a good team.”

Like Northern, Anchorage has fared well against good teams this season. The Seawolves have beaten Ferris State, No. 19 Bowling Green and most impressively, swept No. 15 Michigan Tech in Houghton during December. However, they’ve struggled lately as they were swept by Bowling Green two weeks ago and by Bemidji State in early January. If Northern is finally going to get its first sweep, this is the time.

The Seawolves have a balanced scoring attack led by Tatchell with 19 points and Tad Kozun with 11 goals. Anchorage has seven other players that are in double digits in points and it is tied nationally with Northern in team offense. Mantha also is a talented goalie who has a decent goals against average of 2.86 and a .904 saves percentage.

Anchorage’s weakness is special teams, as the Seawolves are near the cellar on the power play with a penalty kill that is decent, but not spectacular. Meanwhile, Northern’s penalty kill has become one of the best in the nation, so the Seawolves will have a difficult time trying to get any offense going with the man advantage.

“On the penalty kill, we need to be consistently good,” Kyle said. “The big thing moving forward is that we have to keep making it better. We’re also consistent on our power play. We’re consistently bad and we’ve got to find a better way there.”

Last weekend, the Wildcats managed a home nonconference split with Minnesota-Duluth. Northern defeated the Bulldogs on Friday, but the Wildcats had a bad first period Saturday and Duluth earned a 3-1 win. Kyle felt that the Wildcats got better after the first period of the second game and that they need to be better offensively.

“I think we played well as the game went on,” he said. “When you’re down 2-0 on three shots, you’re back on your heels and you’re wondering what’s going on here.

“I think the game got better. It was 1-1 after that. We hit two posts early in the second that could have put us back in it, but we didn’t score. We’ve got to find ways to produce offense consistently if we’re going to have success.”

The big question going into last weekend was who was going to be in net for the Wildcats as Northern has three goalies vying for playing time. All three of them spent time in net against Duluth, although Mathias Israelsson only lasted through the first few minutes Saturday before he was pulled for Mathias Dahlstrom, and Kyle isn’t sure if the goaltending battle will be completely decided against the Seawolves.

That question may not be answered, but another might be and that is when will forward Sami Salminen return to the lineup. Salminen has been out with a leg injury most of the season and things look good for him to return this weekend.

“We hope that he can play,” Kyle said. “He practiced (Monday) full contact. He’s going to be practicing through the week and we’ll see where he is. When Sami was here, our power play was pretty effective and we need that.

“We projected him to be a good forward for us and we think he is that. It’s always tough to lose a guy that high in your lineup for such a long time.”

Overall, Kyle feels good about where his team is at, but said that a sweep this weekend would be huge.

“The best thing that could happen for us is to get back-to-back wins in a weekend,” he said. “We need to do that and build some kind of positive momentum moving forward. You create your own momentum and we’ve got to find a way to do that.”

Northern plays at 7:07 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Berry Events Center.

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