Tag: lssu

#20 Lake Superior State: 16-8-2

Ferris State: 7-18-1

Festering Ferris Falls Behind

What a season it has been for the Ferris State Bulldogs. Head coach of the Bulldogs is now in his 27^th season with the school and has an overall record of 444-466-101. During his tenure, they’ve had some massive success: making a tournament appearance in 2003, 2012, 2014 & 2016, winning the WCHA tournament in 2016, winning regular season titles in 2002-2003, 2011-12 and 2013-14. Heck, in 2012 they made their lone Frozen Four appearance. You wouldn’t know that if you asked the fanbase how they feel, or by looking at the standings, as they are now 7 points out of the playoffs, sitting above Alaska Anchorage.

With this in mind, they did shut out #9 Bowling Green last Saturday 3-0 after shutout Friday night 2-0. Despite all the above doom and gloom, they do have a bright light on their team, and that’s Freshman Defenseman Cooper Zech, who is tied at #7 in scoring in the conference, alongside LSSU’s own Max Humitz and Jared Spooner, all with 23 points. Another Defenseman, Junior Nate Kallen is second in scoring and senior forward Corey Mackin make up the top 3 Ferris State scorers.

Roni Salmenkangas is the go-to goaltender for the Bulldogs, having played in 20 games, but he does hold a 3.69 Goals Against Average and a .878 Save %. Justin Kapelmaster, a junior, is their backup, playing in 9 games and holding a 2.94 GAA and a .923 Save %.

Whitten’s Wonderful Traveling Circus

This team feels like a mystery wrapped in an enigma this season. They’ve won 12 games on the road (counting the GLI), and have lost 2. At home, in 6 series (12 games), the Lakers have won 4 games, all of them on Friday. This brings up a lot of questions, but that’s probably for another article.

After last weekend’s set of games, Diego Cuglietta is still a point-a-game scorer, with 26 points in 26 games. Close behind him are Anthony Nellis and Max Humitz. Now, Max Humitz has been on one hell of a scoring streak since the Great Lakes Invitational, being within one goal of a hat trick at least twice since the tournament.

The goaltending situation is still a bit muddled. Nick Kossoff had an amazing game last Friday night, but would probably want to forget his performance Saturday night (though, the rest of the team may follow suit). We’ll see if Whitten & Co will split the net this weekend, but I expect Nick to start at least Friday night.

Puck drops at 7:07 at the Robert L. Ewigleben Ice Arena in Big Rapids both Friday and Saturday nights, for those who are travelling to the game or who are in the area. Bill Crawford will have the call on 99.5 YESFm, or through YESFM streaming online on their website or on TuneIn. You can also watch the game through Flohockey.tv. For those in the Sault this weekend, the school will be hosting a viewing party Friday night at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Bemidji State: 12-11-3

#18 Lake Superior State: 15-7-2

Beavers Bouncing Back

After an on-and-off start to the season, the Beavers of Bemidji has strung some big-time wins together, having split their weekend series at Bowling Green and sweeping Michigan Tech outside on Lake Bemidji last weekend, albeit with some extra time Friday night.

In an interesting turn, the Beavers are led in scoring by senior defenseman Justin Baudry with 19 points, though their leading goal scorers are a pair of sophomore forwards Aaron Miller (10g) and Charlie Combs (9g) .

Freshman Zach Driscoll and sophomore Henry Johnson seemed to have split more weekends, with Driscoll starting 15 games, and Johnson starting 13. GAA and Save % are nearly identical, though the freshman does have 2 more wins.

Lakers Leaning Towards the Light

With 10 series left before the post season, the Lakers have positioned themselves to be in the final spot for home ice this season. They have the tie breaker, as of now, on Michigan Tech, and are only a point ahead of their opponents this weekend. Through the USCHO poll, the Lakers are ranked #18, however through the Pairwise rankings, they are at #20. They’ll need to start a good run this weekend in order to break into the top 15, and a chance at an at-large bid.

Our top three scorers are the same as they’ve been for a while – led by captain Diego Cuglietta (17-7-24), Anthony Nellis (11-12-23) and Max Humitz (9-12-21). Diego is officially a point-a-game player, with Nellis being 1 point behind that mark, the same with Humitz going into the weekend. 

The goaltending will be the story in the later half of the year. Nick Kosshoff has played in 16 games, with a record of 11-3-2, and Mareks Mitens following him with 8 games played and a 4-4-0 record, with all 4 of the wins being shutouts. This includes last weekend where Mareks made 29 saves. While I don’t think Nick has lost his net, I think Mareks is certainly lighting the fire – hopefully a bit of competition is a good thing.

Friday night, the Lakers will also try to battle domestic violence, providing a free t-shirt to the first 1000 fans so they can white-out the arena, so do try to come out to the arena this weekend to support your Lakers. However, if you can’t, it will be on over the air on 99.5 YESFm, streaming through Yesfm.net or through the TuneIn app. Flohockey.tv will have the video feed of the game.

LSSU: 14-6-2

MSUM: 18-5-1

Purple Posse

So, we meet again, Mankato. Since the realignment, the Mavericks have had the Lakers number. Of course, Lake State hopes that changes this weekend, but looking at Minnesota State’s record of 18-5-1, and a perfect 11-0-0 at home, that this weekend will be another battle.

Surprisingly, the Maverick’s top scorers are either juniors or sophomores. Junior forwards Marc Michaelis and Parker Tuomie top this list, with 26 and 22 points respectively, followed by sophomore forward Jared Spooner at 21 points.

In net, Freshman Dryden McKay has won the starting role, having played in 17 games with a 11-4-1 record, 2.05 GAA and a .919 Save %. Behind him is senior Mathias Israelsson who has played in 9 games this season, 7-1-0 record, with 1.74 GAA and a .908 Save%.

On a side note, they’ve out of the 12 series they’ve played as part of the regular season, half of them have been against ranked opponents (Ferris x2, Bemidji, UAA, Michigan Tech and Alaska were unranked). They dropped 1 game against any of those opponents, Saturday night at Bemidji.  The only series they were swept in was against the then #12 Bowling Green in December. They also lost against Minnesota Duluth and tied against Arizona State at the Desert Hockey Classic, and then #16 North Dakota early in the season.

Blue Bombshells Bombast the Best

Minnesota State-Mankato: The real test to any season. This season, however, having been ranked on and off throughout the season, becoming the new GLI champions, and being on a 8-game unbeaten streak, Mankato will be the ultimate gut check. Remember: Six of those wins came from opponents #52 or lower in the pairwise. The other two are #30 Michigan State and #31 Michigan Tech.

The top point getters stay the same, except Max Humitz breaks into the top. Diego Cuglietta and Anthony Nellis lead with 23 and 22 points respectively, with Humitz bringing up the rear at 19. Both Cuglietta and Nellis  have also been nominated for the Hobey Baker Award – you can vote for them here (https://www.hobeybaker.com/vote) , and they also have a shot at breaking 100 points, though by my math, Humitz should be the next 100 point scorer next season.

Puck drops at 7:07pm CST, so 8:07 pm both Friday and Saturday nights in Mankato. Locally it can be heard on 99.5 YESFm, or on it’s website stream or on Tunein. You can see the game on FloHockey.tv for a nominal fee.

Bowling Green: 7-2-2

LSSU: 5-2-1

Flying into #10

The Falcons this year have had an interesting schedule, having played 8 non-conference games, and only two series worth of WCHA play. Amongst those NC games, they split a home-and-home with Robert Morris, where the home team took the win, went up 3 points on #19 Western Michigan and dunked #4 Ohio State 8-2. This kind of play has landed them in the #10 spot this week, after splitting with Northern Michigan and forcing a tie & win with UAA.

They are led in scoring by a trio of sophomores: Max Johnson  (6-7-13), Brandon Kruse (3-10-13) and Connor Ford (6-5-11). Ryan Bednard looks to be their go-to netminder so far this season, having played in 9 of the 11 games. He currently has a 1.33 GAA and a .943 Save %. Eric Dop has similar numbers, though he does only have 3 goals against to Bednard’s 12.

Chris Bergeron returns for his 9th season as the Falcons head coach, with a record of 146-143-39.

“If it’s brown, lay down. If it’s black, fight back. If it’s white, goodnight.”

The Lakers learned the hard way the above phrase. They both fought back against the Nanooks and was fought against. Even though it was stated both on this website along with other online outlets, the Nanooks were a better team than their record gave them credit for, but it doesn’t make the sweep any easier to swallow.

Not only will the Lakers have to fight back against a very good Bowling Green team. The good news is that the Lakers tend to play pretty well against them, and have been some of the more fun games that I’ve been able to witness.

There is one takeaway from the last couple of weeks that the coaching staff will need to clean up: Using the bottom two lines more. I don’t have the numbers, but it certainly seemed to me that the fourth line had maybe 4 minutes total last weekend, with the third getting just a few more. Yes, it’s great that the top 2 lines are firing on all cylinders, but history has proven, both in the NCAA and the NHL that you need to be able to roll all 4 lines to win championships.

As always, the game will be on http://www.yesfm.net, or can be seen on Flohockey.tv. If you living near Bowling Green, please support your Lakers at the Slater Family Ice Arena. Puck drops at 7:37pm Friday and 7:07pm Saturday. Also, for those in the Sault, Laker Athletics will be hosting a viewing party at Buffalo Wild Wings starting at 7:30pm Friday.

Alaska: 0-7-1

LSSU: 5-1-0

Bad Intros and Bad Scoring

(Seriously, look up the Nanook’s old intro video).

Alaska has had a very tough schedule to open their season which has only allowed them to score 9 points in 8 games. Their top three in scoring have a total of11 points between them, and only 3 goals. After lighting up Simon Fraser for 13, the Nanooks have faced Arizona State, #5 St. Cloud State, #9 Denver & #7 Minnesota State on the road, save for St. Cloud, which was played in Fairbanks.

This week, they travel to the lower 48 yet again to Sault Sainte Marie. They bring in 10 Freshman, with only 4 seniors returning this season. Their head coach is a man named Erik Largen, who previously coached for Marian down in Division III hockey, where he went 18-4-4.

The University of Alaska skates on a large Olympic sized ice sheet at home, so they are nearly always a good skating team, and with all the traveling they’ve done as part of the early season, they are a team that the Lakers can’t underestimate. Hell, they only lost to Denver in regulation once, losing in Overtime that Saturday night.

All Aboard The Hype Train!

The Lakers have started their year out at 5-1, losing last Saturday to their former CCHA rivals, Michigan and their head coach Mel Pearson. They’ll be looking to built that momentum, and on paper, there doesn’t seem much that Alaska can really do to slow it down, but the team has to give it their all.

The Laker’s scoring leaders are led by two seniors, Anthony Nellis (5-5-10) and Gage Torrel(0-7-7), followed closely by upstart freshman Jacob Nordqvist (1-5-6). Add in Hampus Eriksson, and you have 4 point-per-game players.

The goaltending save % looks good for both Mitens and Kossoff, at .933 and .900 respectively. Their Goals Against Average is a bit subpar, as they’ve been getting peppered with shots. Whoever stands in net this weekend will have to try and stay awake and not let any soft goals in.

Puck drops both nights at 7:07pm. They can be heard locally at 99.5 YESfm, or online at www.yesfm.net or on TuneIn. You can see the action yourself at the Taffy Abel Arena, or online at Flohockey.tv.

It appears that some new banners went up around Abel Arena during the offseason, featuring the 5 championship teams, Hobey Baker finalists and some history on the Victory Bell. To see them in person, you’ll have to venture on up to the arena.

(#12) Michigan: 3-2-0

Lake Superior State: 4-0-0

From #4 to #12 – Hail to the…Victors?

Michigan started the year off at #4 in the national polls, but slipped after a drumming put on by unranked Vermont, maintained their rank after beating Waterloo, but slipped to #9 before losing 6-3 to a stacked USNTP U-18 Team, then to #11 for their match with WMU. After splitting with #19 Western Michigan, they dropped to #12, even after sweeping St. Lawrence at home.

The Wolverines return only two of their top 5 scorers this season: Defenseman Quinn Hughes and forward Jake Slaker. Their top scorer last season was Cooper Marody, a junior, but he decided to go pro, and is currently with the Edmonton Oilers organization. This will also be a homecoming of sorts for Luke Morgan, who decommitted from the Lakers after an outstanding freshman year. It just so happens that former Michigan Tech head coach, and Damon Whitten’s former boss Mel Pearson was tapped to replace longtime & Hall of Fame head coach Red Berenson.

While this will not be the first time the Wolverines and Lakers have faced each other since the dissolution of the former CCHA, this will mark the first time Michigan has been back to Abel Arena since the 2012-2013 season, where the two teams split the weekend.

Even Keel for the Lakers

There’s been some nervous optimism going through the fanbase here in the Sault going into this weekend, with the Lakers being 4-0 on the year and 6-0 counting the exhibition series.

Of course, we’re hoping that the record goes to 6-0, especially considering that this weekend is Great Lake State Weekend! And we will have two Laker Legends in the house, being inducted into the LSSU Hall of fame: Former goaltender Darrin Madeley (1989-1992) and Mark Astley (1988-1992). Madeley had a fairly long post- college career, filling in for the Ottawa Senators. Astley played primarily in Switzerland, but had a few stints with the Buffalo Sabres. He also has his own banner hung up in Abel Arena, as he played with the Canadian National Team for 54 games, ultimately winning silver in the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.

This will be the first major test for the Lakers, going against a nationally ranked team.  I don’t know if anyone can say that Michigan has more to lose than the Lakers have more to gain. Either way, it will be fun to see the blue and maize return to the Sault, and the stands ought to be packed.

On Friday night, the puck will drop at 7:37pm at Taffy Abel Arena, and 7:07pm Saturday night. If you have not ordered your tickets, I would urge everyone to order ahead of time to 1) guarantee your seat, and 2) avoid the long lines. If you are not able to make it to the game, or you are out of town, you can listen to the Voice of the Lakers Bill Crawford on 99.5 YESfm over the air or online, or watch the game on FloHockey.tv.

UAH: 0-6-0

LSSU: 2-0-0

Charging in the Wrong Direction

The Chargers of Alabama-Huntsville are off to a pretty rough start this year, opening their season with four straight road losses, then two more at home against Arizona State. To be fair, however, the road losses were all against NCHC powerhouse teams, having faced the top three teams in that conference.

Mike Corbett returns as the bench boss, also returning are two of their top 4 points –getters in Defenseman Kurt Gosselin and Christian Rajic – Josh Kestner graduated last season, who was the top point-scorer, and Tyler Poulsen, who is now with the Rapid City Rush of the ECHL.

The Chargers in the coaches’ poll came in 9^th in voting, 5 points behind #7 LSSU. In the media poll, conducted by UAHhockey, however, they were chosen to be #7, 12 points ahead of #8 LSSU. While the preseason polls don’t really mean much, it does show that these two teams are behind the same eight-ball, and this series could help decide who gets into the playoffs come March.

A New Seasons Means A New Hope

It was quite the offseason for the Lakers this summer. J.T Henke, Kyle Chatham, Aiden Wright and Ryan Renz all graduated, with Henke being the top scorer for the Lakers. Along with them, defenseman Matt McArdle graduated, and decided to transfer to Merrimack. Luckily the reunion went our way. All of this was topped off with a four-year contract extension for bench boss Damon Whitten, the departure of longtime assistant coach Rich Metro to Shattuck-St. Marys and the hiring of Zack Cisek from Notre Dame.

While the Lakers may have lost Henke, they have gained some talent in return. Many of the incoming freshman forwards have been noticeable on the ice. Looking at just the two Merrimack games, two freshmen, Pierre-Luc Veillette and Jacob Nordqvist are both tied for first in total points.

They return all three goalies. While it sounds like the starting two are basically set in stone, Bengert certainly has a chance at starting at some point this season if either Kossoff or Mitens gets into a slump. This is also the first time in a while where it feels like the third goalie will really push the top two to be better & to keep their spot. All in all this is a good thing, and should make for an entertaining season.

This weekend’s series will be hosted at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, AL. Puck drop is at 7:07CT, so you can catch Matt Pocket on 99.5 Yesfm at 8:07 EST. You can also stream the series from FloHockey.tv

It was one year at the end of August that we decided to start the experiment that has been the Laker Hockey Blog. If you remember one of our earliest post, this webpage was started as a way to have a consistent source for Lake Superior State University Hockey news, seeing as the local media largely does not cover the Lakers on either side of the St. Marys.

And after looking through some of the stats, and seeing some of the traffic on our Facebook page, I’d say it was worth it. We’ve managed to reach three continents with consistent numbers! (a look at that a little later). It hasn’t been without it’s stresses, as some black hats have thought it would be funny to mess with the site on occasion, or worrying about content, but the pros outweigh the cons.

Now, onto some stats. Note: Depending on where I look at our stats, some numbers are different, but I will be going with the ones I saw first.

————————————————-

Total Posts & Words:

2017 & 2018 both had 47 posts for a total of 94 total posts.

Articles written in 2017 had a total of 23,793 total words with 506 average words per article.

2018 posts have a total of 21,006 words, with 447 average words per article.

Unique Visitors and Views:

Over the website’s first year, we’ve seen a total of 1,895 total unique readers. This is outrageous to me!

Those viewers have also accounted for 5,329 total views.

Best Single Day:

10/05/2017 was the best day for Laker Hockey Blog, where we had 175 visitors, the most so far. This came a day after the first series preview was posted, but if I remember correctly, the big hit was the interview Mike did with Mike York, the then new assistant coach and former NHLer.

Top 3 Posts:

Home Page

Annual Blue vs Gold Game Showcases Laker Talent

Rumor: Nenadal Out at Lake State

Top Referrals:

Search Engines (778)

Facebook (518)

Twitter (149)

Known Search Terms:

(Now this one is kind of fun. It seems to be a list of some of the known terms that were used on search engines in order to get to the blog. My personal favorite is the final search term:)

amazon (22)

hockey blog (2)

minnesota hockey blog (1)

darrin madeley(1)

keith aldridge – hockey (1)

matt brunetau(1)

where did hockey coach rich metro go (1)

Countries Reached (more than 10 viewers)

USA: 4311

Canada 771

Japan 84

Latvia 47

Sweden 29

UK 15

Germany 15

Ireland 14

————————————————-

This last category I am extremely proud of. The last few seasons have seen an increase of international students & players wearing the blue & gold, and that has allowed the Laker Hockey Blog to reach audiences on three continents: North America, Europe and Asia. I never expected this to happen.

Thank you to everyone who visits this site, especially the regulars. We hope to keep bringing you quality content over the next year, and hopefully some new types of features. So please like and share our posts on Facebook, follow and Retweet us on Twitter so we can reach that broader audience.

I’ve also just added a button on the sidebar that will allow you to email us, so if you have any questions, comments, concerns or ideas, you can use any of the above ways to contact us, including email. Heck, if you’re coming in from out of town and want some ideas as to what to do or where to eat that’s not covered here, hit us up. We’d love to hear from you.

From all of us here at Laker Hockey Blog, thank you very much for what I’ll call a successful year. The new season is just on the horizon, and there has been a lot of changes this offseason. Whether that proves to be good for the boys in blue have yet to be seen, but we will be in the trenches covering all (well, most) of the action.

Thank you!

Bemidji State: 2016: 22-16-3 2017: 14-8-6
Lake Superior State: 2016: 11-18-7 2017: 6-20-4

“They might in the future more than ever before engage in hunting beavers.” – Samuel de Champlain
The Bemidji State Beavers are currently holding down the final home playoff spot, coming into the weekend at #4 in the WCHA. The lead Michigan Tech by 5 points and trail Minnesota State by 6. Tech is playing #14 Bowling Green this weekend, so it’s unlikely that the Beavers will lose out on their spot this weekend.
The Beavers are led by 4 20+ point scorers in Kyle Bauman, Gerry Fitzgerald, Jay Dickman and Adam Brady, all of them forwards. In net, Michael Bitzer has only missed a total of 78 minutes this season. In those 1623 minutes in net, he has recoreded a 14-7-6 record, a 2.14 GAA and a .911 Save %. Interestingly enough, he also has an assist this season.
While it’s unlikely that the Beavers move at all in the rankings this week (Minnesota State is playing UAA), they will be looking to win to keep pace with the Mavericks. The last time these two teams met, Lake State was shutout in game 1 and lost 6-3 in game 2.

“Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.” – Arthur Golden
Despite the results, the last three weekends, starting with the Ferris State series, the Lakers seemed to have regained some control and come together to play as a team, save for a few players and a period or two. Saturday night’s game against Ferris gave the Lakers their first conference win in over a month. In the series at Northern Michigan, the Lakers gave the Wildcats a run for their money both nights, losing 3-2 in both games & losing the Cappo Cup.
Last weekend was the most promising of all. The boys in blue did lose Friday night 5-3, mostly due to shaky goaltending to start the game. But on Saturday night, the Lakers took it to the then #15 Bowling Green Falcons, losing only 3-2, though by all accounts the Refs gave that game away, waving off a goal that should have counted.
But we’re not going to dive into the officiating here.
Despite the resurgence of the team, it feels too little too late. As it stands, the Lakers are out of the playoff picture right now, being eight points behind Alaska and only three points ahead of last-ranked Alaska Anchorage. The good news is that the next three weeks will be tough for the Nanooks, taking on Ferris State this weekend, #19 Northern Michigan next week and the Beavers of Bemidji State the weekend of the 15th-16th before finishing up against UAA.
The Lakers need to win and win fast. Outside of this, their fate isn’t in their hands – they will need help from the rest of the league to help secure a playoff spot. I’m not holding my breath, mind you, but it could be a very interesting final month of the season.
Lake State finally has three 20-point scorers in J.T. Henke, Max Humitz and Diego Cuglietta.

Puck drops both Friday and Saturday night games starting at 8:07pm ET or 7:07 CT. They can be heard locally on 99.5 YesFM, online at www.yesfm.net, or on the TuneIn app. For those fans not in the area, or cannot make it to the arena but still want to watch the action, both games will be available on www.WCHA.tv.