Few teams lost quite as many impact players over the offseason as Bemidji State.
Aside from the Sillinger brothers (Owen and Lukas) – the team’s joint leading goal scorers with 17 apiece – the Beavers also lost a big chunk of their leadership group. Fifth-year senior captain Ethan Somoza – an older, hard-working veteran who embodied a certain Beaver mentality – graduated, as did a number of other four-year players like Alex Ierullo, Tyler Kirkup, Brad Johnson and Alex Adams.
Those players scored a lot of points for the Beavers, but most importantly they were veteran leaders who knew what Tom Serratore and the rest of the BSU coaching staff wanted from them.
The Beavers had some stalwart veterans returning, like forward Ross Armour and Eric Martin and defensemen Elias Rosén, Will Zmolek and Kyle Looft. But they knew they needed a few more guys who could come in and make an instant impact with both their play and their leadership.
So, coming into this season, Serratore had a solution: dipping into the transfer portal. The Beavers usually tend to bring in one or two a season. But this year, they brought in three: Mitchell Martan from Canisius, Kaden Pickering from St. Lawrence and Jackson Jutting from Colorado College.
All three have played key roles for the Beavers in their four games so far this season: Martan is leading the team in goals (four) and points (six), while Pickering has a pair of assists and Jutting one helper. Jutting, a junior from Prior Lake, Minn., also scored the game winner in Saturday’s shootout win against Michigan Tech – a goal that won’t show up in his stats but helped the Beavers finish off their weekend in the Upper Peninsula with five points.
Serratore said adding three transfers this season was an easy call because of the way all three approach the game.
“We needed experience,” he said. “We lost a boatload of guys, so the one thing they bring is experience. They’re battle-tested, and that was important to us coming into a young team. If you don’t lose that many guys, maybe you don’t bring as many transfers in, but we felt at this particular time, the amount of guys we lost last year and the impact they made over the course of four years, we felt we needed to bring in some experienced hockey players. We’re really happy with them, and they’ve all been a joy to coach.”
It hasn’t just been the transfers that have stood out so far for the Beavers, who are 2-1-1 just four games into the young season. Freshman Lleyton Road, who was held off the scoreboard in BSU’s season-opening series against Arizona State, had himself a statement weekend against the Huskies, scoring twice and assisting on another in Friday’s 5-2 win before netting an unassisted tally in Saturday’s 2-2 tie that the Beavers won in the shootout.
“Guys are playing well,” Serratore said. “A lot of it is getting opportunities. I think they’re feeding off each other. We’ve only played four games, so it’s early and there’s a lot of hockey left, but I think we’re getting good production from a lot of different guys, and I think a lot of it is a lot of different guys are getting opportunities because we lost so many guys from last year.”
Case-in-point: Many of the returning standouts so far this year have been sophomores. European wingers Alexander Lundman, from Sweden, and Jakub Lewandowski, from Poland, played sparingly last year but are currently playing top-line minutes. Jere Vaisanen, from Finland, appeared in 37 games a season ago but has shifted from winger to center. And defenseman Will Magnuson and Tony Follmer both figure to have increased roles on the blue line after the departures of Johnson and Tyler Jubenvill.
“If you’re young, you don’t always get opportunities,” Serratore said of his sophomore class. “The only way you can get better, the only way you can get experience and the only way you can develop is by playing. It’s their time. They’re coming in a lot more confident. When you come in as a freshman you don’t know what to expect, and when you’re not playing all you’re trying to do is survive and get in the lineup. Now that they’re coming in as sophomores, they are more battle-tested, more experienced, they know exactly what is expected of them, and they know how we want to play. There’s just a lot less for them to have to think about coming into their second year compared to their first year.”
The Beavers hope their relative fresh faces can keep up their successful, hard-working play all season. They take on No. 2 St. Cloud State in a home-and-home this weekend.
“Just because you lose so many guys doesn’t mean you don’t have good players waiting in the wings,” Serratore said. “We’ve got a lot of good honest players who work hard. The key is, can they continue to take advantage of it? Two weekends doesn’t make a season. We want to stay consistent.”
