When the season started, Northern Michigan had something of a defensive crisis.
The Wildcats barely had enough healthy bodies to field a full defensive unit. At one point, they had just four regular blueliners.
Adding to that, the team’s No. 1 goalie, Rico DiMatteo, wasn’t 100 percent after recovering from surgery.
“We played a series early this year where we had four healthy defensemen,” NMU coach Grant Potulny said, noting that his team was using converted forwards on the blue line. “Guys kinda started to come back, but I felt like once we got one guy back, a different guy would get hurt.”
It showed on the ice.
The Wildcats lost five straight at the end of October, including sweeps against Bemidji State and Minnesota State. It all culminated in a 7-0 defeat at the hands of Minnesota State.
“I thought we played pretty good in the games against Bemidji and just didn’t get the results we wanted,” Potulny said. “Going to Mankato, we got humbled there. I think leaving there, it got the players’ full attention. That’s the biggest thing, and now the buy-in on some of the small details has really gone up.”
Since then, though, the Wildcats have fared much better.
After that humbling loss to the Mavericks, NMU has won six of the last eight games. Their defense is still allowing too many goals for Potulny’s liking, but they have outscored opponents 38-27.
“We’ve played a couple games this year where we were able to get to five or six and hold the opponent to two,” Potulny said. “Obviously, you want to score as much as you can and generate as much offense as you can. Luckily for us, we’ve been able to do that.”
NMU’s offensive prowess has been led by junior AJ Vanderbeck and sophomore Michael Colella, who currently pace the CCHA with 12 and 11 goals, respectively. Junior Hank Crone leads the team in total points with 21. Andre Ghantous, Hampus Eriksson and Joseph Nardi are also in double-figure scoring.
The encouraging thing for Potulny is that the Wildcats’ defense has started playing better. Part of that is that they are now (mostly) healthy on defense. DiMatteo has returned but NMU also found they had a serviceable backup in Charlie Glockner.
“I think we weren’t firing on all cylinders yet,” Potulny said of the team’s early-season struggles. “I think there’s still a long way to go for us, but we have started to limit some of the opponent’s shots and their looks on the penalty kill as well as their scoring chances.”
Northern will get a chance to test their progress this weekend when they welcome No. 1 Minnesota Duluth to Marquette for a nonconference series. The last time these teams met, in 2016, the Wildcats managed a split with the Bulldogs in Marquette. Since then, UMD has been to four Frozen Fours, three NCAA title games and has won two championships.
“There’s not a weakness in what they do and that’s a reason they’re No. 1 in the Pairwise. Over the last decade they’ve been the most dominant team in college hockey for a reason,” Potulny said.
“It’s really exciting for our team and our players and our staff to have an opportunity to play a team like this. You can get them in your own rink, they’re four hours away, so there’s hopefully a little bit of a rivalry with the fanbase. We’re really looking forward to having an opportunity to play them this weekend.”
