The St. Cloud State Huskies played an outstanding game in ending the
Northern Michigan Wildcats' twelve-game home winning streat Saturday
night in Marquette, winning 6-4.
 
The game was terribly frustrating for Wildcat fans for the first 32
minutes, as St. Cloud simply owned all but about five of them.  NMU play
in the final 5 minutes of the first period was exceptional as it stormed
the St. Cloud net during that time, but no goals resulted and the period
ended 2-0, Huskies.  St. Cloud resumed domination of the game in the
second period, moving out to a 3-0 lead at 2:03, and quickly regaining
the three-goal lead at 13:06 after NMU briefly cut it to 3-1 at 9:23.
 
But at 14:07 the Wildcats scored to make it 4-2 and again just 51 game
seconds later, and for all but 2:40 of the rest of the game it was a
one-goal contest, which made it tense and exciting, unlike the earlier
parts.  (The Huskies scored an empty net goal at 19:27 to finish the
scoring.) The following quotations comprise most of the article on the
game written by Daniel Miller and published in the February 6, 1994
Marquette Mining Journal.
 
"This is a tough loss but we just couldn't get it in the net," NMU Coach
Rick Comley said.  "We played the type of hockey we wanted--rolling up
and supporting--but we were just a little undermanned tonight and it
hurt us."
 
Undermanned might be an understatement.
 
The Wildcats (17-10-1 overall, 14-9-1 WCHA) were without the services of
four key players (Ganz, Hadden, Carpenter, George) and played the game
using four freshman defensemen, which hurt at times.
 
"We had some defensive breakdowns that led to goals but that stuff is
going to happen, you just have to battle through it," Comley said
 
In the early stages of the game, it looked like the Wildcats were
missing half the team.
 
St. Cloud had plenty of jump in their skates at the start while Northern
had trouble connecting on two passes in a row.  (SBC editorial comment:
"Amen to that!")
 
"Last night it took us a while to get on track but tonight we jumped out
on top early and skated really well," SCSU Coach Craig Dahl said.
 
While Northern was trying to get into some sort of rhythm, SC was
putting the puck in the net.  Goals by Bill Lund and Kelly Rieder gave
the Huskies a 2-0 lead at the end of one period.
 
Things would get worse before they got better.
 
Dave Holum scored on a breakaway just 2:03 into the second period to
make it 3-0.
 
That's when Norhtern's Steve Woog gave the Wildcats the wakeup call they
needed.
 
After working hard in the Huskie zone, Woog got the puck at the edge of
the right circle and blistered a shot past SCSU goalie Grant Sjerven to
make it 3-1 and more importantly to give Northern some life.
 
"We battled pretty hard tonight and tried to work the corners," Woog
said.  "We just came up short, nobody's hanging their head though."
 
After some sloppy play resulted in a Chris Markstrom goal that moved the
score to 4-1, the crowd grew restless and began to get on the Wildcats.
 
Northern responded with tow goals in 51 seconds to make it a4-3 game
heading into the final stanza.  Dean Seymour and Jason Hehr each tallied
for Northern to send the crowd into a frenzy.
 
In the final period, however, SCSU's Marc Gagnon scored what turned out
to be the game winner at 6:25.
 
NMU's Bill MacGillivray would score two minutes later but that would be
it for Northern.
 
The Huskies added a late empty-net goal to close the scoring at 6-4.
 
"With the thin lineup we had, I thought the kids gave just about all
they could tonight," Comley said.  "We fought hard to get bak in it and
I was pleased with that."
 
Power play opportunities: SCSU 0/4; NMU 0/5
 
Penalties: SCSU 10/20; NMU 9/18
 
Goalie saves: SCSU 25 (Sjerven, 10-6-9) NMU 20 (Kochan, 8-7-5)
 
Attendance: 4,016
 
In conclusion, I'd have to say that this game was disappointing but
hardly crushing.  Even with the many missing players, the Wildcats could
have won it right up to the time of the ENG.  Had Kochan been able to
stop at least one of the two SCSU goals scored on breakaways--or had his
teammates not allowed those breakaways; and had the young defensemen not
three times in the last few minutes attempted shots directly into diving
defensive players, resulting in blocks that spoiled good scoring
opportunities, who knows what might have happened.  (I'm thinking that
maybe the empty net goal resulted from one of the latter situations.)
 
St. Cloud is FAST!  And from what I recall was in the comments in the
Twin Cities paper quoted to us earlier, they are now in an excellent
scheduling situation for the rest of the race.  Hmmm.....
 
Steve Christopher, Northern Michigan University
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