MANKATO — Last weekend’s series against Bowling Green left a weird taste in everyone’s mouth.
Minnesota State and BGSU battled to a 4-4 tie Friday night and a 1-1 tie Saturday night. MSU won the shootout on Friday. The Falcons won the shootout Saturday.
And as Mavericks head coach Luke Strand recalled from Saturday night one team was celebrating like they won a championship. The other team was left feeling sour. Sure, they collected crucial points in the CCHA standings, but it still wasn’t a win.
On Saturday, MSU was the team left feeling sour as they enter this weekend’s road series at Lake Superior State.
“That’s the group I want. That’s the group we’ll have,” MSU head coach Luke Strand said. “I think they’ve came back very determined after the weekend. We’ve had a couple good looks at meetings here, whether it be individually or team wise, and get our special (teams) back going the right direction here. And at the same time we understand we get to go play a road game. It’s the perfect timing, actually, in my opinion, for a road game, to stick back together.”
Game 1 between the Mavericks and Lakers is set for 6:07 p.m. Friday with the finale set for 5:07 p.m. Saturday. Both games at Taffy Abel Arena can be streamed on the CCHA Network or can be heard on KTOE AM 1420.
The Mavericks enter the series at 4-2-2 overall and 1-1-2 in CCHA play. The last three MSU games, all on home ice, have gone into overtime.
MSU also tinkered with line pairing last weekend against the Falcons, primarily at the left wing slot. Liam Watkins moved to the first line, Sawyer Scholl dipped to the third line, Charlie Lurie found himself on the fourth pairing and Felikss Gavars found himself bumped up to the second line.
Then Gavars found himself limping off the ice in the first period on Friday. Any plans of experimentation flew out the window.
Yet, it was that chaos last weekend that may be beneficial to the purple and gold going forward.
“You’d love to solidify some things, but we’re definitely going to tweak a little bit see if you can stretch your lineup,” Strand said. “You’re always trying to make that lineup deeper and deeper. As we get guys back into the lineup it will help us along the way here. These guys that are playing that normally wouldn’t get the ice time or opportunity that they’re getting. They’re going to help themselves here by the time we come out on the other side of this.”
MSU holds a 38-5-2 overall record against LSSU in games dating back to 2014. But both teams are at different points in their process at the Lakers enter the game with an overall record of 3-6-1 anf are winless in four CCHA games.
Strand describes the Lakers as a dangerous team with a plethora of returning forwards and timely goaltending.
“It’s conference play,” Strand said. “We have to be on guard and just understand our opponent, because they can get up and go. If you want to turnover pucks and play foolishly they can cash in on mistakes pretty quick.”
Sophomore William Ahlrik leads the Lakers with 11 points behind three goals and a team-best eight assists. Sophomore Adam Barone also has eight helper this year. Freshmen Caleb Mangone, Hunter Ramos and junior Carter Batchelder have each scored four goals for the Lakers.
LSSU also has sophomore Rorke Applebee in net. He’s currently 2-4 with a 3.06 goals against average and a save percentage of .913. But don’t let his numbers fool you, he’s a confident goaltender. The Mavericks must get bodies to the net to generate offense.
“We have to execute,” Strand said. “We’ve had some moments of truth that are on our blade that need to end up in the back of the net, that we’ve been just off with, that need to get fixed.”