MANKATO — The Minnesota State men’s hockey team has lost a few games where it might have been the better team this season.
Goaltender Alex Tracy and a great special teams performance ensured another third-period lead didn’t slip away Saturday night.
“I guess you could say that our third-period starts have been kind of haunting us a little bit,” MSU defenseman Luke Ashton said. “It was definitely nice to have that one come together and to be able to shut it down the whole third period.”
An early power-play goal was all Minnesota State ended up needing in a 1-0 nonconference win over Omaha in front of 4,987 fans at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center. MSU claimed the traveling Spirit of the Maverick trophy that goes to the winner of these games.
Minnesota State won Game 1 of the series 4-3 Friday, though Omaha was able to erase a 3-0 third-period deficit.
MSU managed the game early in the third Saturday before establishing a strong forecheck in the closing minutes.
“We didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot in the third,” MSU coach Luke Strand said. “The last 10 minutes of the period really pushed the pace and swayed the game our way.”
Tracy made several great saves in the win, but his best may have come on UNO’s Jimmy Glynn midway through the first period. Glynn had a clean breakaway, but Tracy was able to make a pad save, which was immediately followed by Glynn taking a minor penalty for slashing.
Tracy made 27 saves to get his fifth career shutout and did a great job of limiting rebounds.
“When his rebound control is so good, he’s a calmer goalie,” Strand said. “He’s not racing to make the next big save. … It also settles our guys down.”
Added Ashton: “When you have a goalie that’s playing that well and is that hot, it just makes it so much easier.”
Adam Eisele scored the game’s lone goal on the power play at 14:06 of the first. Ashton started the play by rocketing a cross-ice feed to Brian Carrabes through traffic on the left wing. Carrabes then found Eisele on the back door for an easy tap-in.
With MSU on the penalty kill during the second, Tracy made a few more nice saves on Glynn from in tight to help survive a strong push from Omaha.
Minnesota State killed two more penalties early in the third period and went 4 for 4 in the game after entering play at 80.9%. MSU also entered the game with only one power-play goal on the season.
“It’s definitely a big confidence booster for our special teams,” Ashton said. “We showed ourselves that we can get that goal and that we can shut it down on the PK.”
Final shots on goal favored Omaha 27-16.
MSU finishes nonconference play at 5-3 and will open CCHA play Friday with a road game against Bemidji State.
“I thought we left some meat on the table, but that’s an early time for us and hopefully we can learn and those can be lessons we push forward with,” Strand said of the team’s start. “We’ll take the record. We want to keep moving forward.”
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