The way Northern Michigan has played this season had, until this past weekend at least, baffled Grant Potulny.
The Wildcats’ underlying numbers have looked good, even great.
They have a top-10 power play, a top-15 offense, one of the best faceoff percentages in the country, a player in AJ Vanderbeck who is among the nation’s top-five scorers (eight goals, nine assists) and a goaltender in Beni Halasz who is the best rookie goaltender in the CCHA, if not the country.
And yet, the Wildcats have struggled to string together consistent, reliable results this season – hence their record hovering around .500 for most of the season.
“I think the biggest thing is we have to figure out a way to win,” NMU’s sixth-year head coach said. “I think we were playing well enough to win in a lot of games, but some games we were scoring four goals and giving up five. Some games we were only giving up two but only got to one. So we have to find that balance of consistency to where we’re averaging three a night and giving up two a night. That needs to be the recipe for success.”
Last weekend against Lake Superior State, the Wildcats seemed to have found it. NMU played two solid games on the road and won 4-1 and 5-3 against its Upper Peninsula rivals, increasing their record to 7-5-0 and putting them in the top half of the CCHA standings.
It was the first time this season, according to Potulny, that the Wildcats put together a “back-to-back two-game effort.”
NMU hadn’t done that much this season, and certainly hadn’t done it the weekend before against Alaska. They lost to the Nanooks 2-1 in their series opener but did manage to win 3-2 in the finale. Conversely, against Anchorage the week before that, they won 9-1 but lost 3-2 in game two.
So against Lake Superior State, Potulny focused on starting well.
“Last weekend was magnified because not only was it league games, but they were also rivalry games. And the other thing is, we’ve had struggles there. It had been a tough place for us to play,” Potulny said. “So kind of the mantra for the week was, start on time on Friday, get to your game first and hopefully you can have success in both games.”
The Wildcats, who lost in Sault Ste. Marie 7-2 and 4-1 in the regular season in 2021-22, were able to prevent the Lakers from running away with it this time around. Vanderbeck had a goal and an assist in both games, while David Keefer and Vincent DeMay also scored for NMU and Halasz made 48 saves. In Friday’s game, NMU scored three in the second and third periods to break a 1-1 first-period tie and earn the win.
On Saturday, it was a little trickier, as the Lakers had gone up 3-1 on a second-period shorthanded goal. What
“That could have been a real dagger for us,” Potulny said. “I thought if we kept it at two, we’d have a chance to extend the game. Then they extended it to three and I kinda thought, ‘Sheesh, we’re really going to have to claw back, and hopefully we can get it to overtime.’ But it was early enough in the period that we were allowed to keep playing. … Great response by the guys.
“This is the first time I think we’ve started building momentum. We had some success early in the year, won three in a row and swept a team on the road, but I didn’t think we were playing great. I thought we were doing enough to win. I feel like now we’re starting to get into that window where we can start building some momentum.”
It helps to have such a strong roster – especially up front. Vanderbeck leads the CCHA in both goals (tied with Minnesota State’s David Silye) and points, while he and Andre Ghantous are the co-leaders for assists. In fact, at the moment Vanderbeck is No. 1 in nearly every offensive category aside from goals per game, and that’s only because he’s played one more game than Silye.
“AJ is having a very good year, and I think Andre, his engine is starting to really warm up,” Potulny said. “He’s a guy that, when he really catches fire, I think he plays like the best player in the league. He hasn’t hit that stride yet, but he’s really close to hitting one. That being said, he’s still playing great hockey.”
Potulny said he’s also excited to see other players starting to heat up, like UConn transfer Artem Shlaine (6g-4a-10pts), CCHA preseason rookie of the year Joey Larson (3g-6a-9pts), and juniors Kristof Paap (3g-2a-5pts) and Michel Colella (3g-6a-9pts).
“We’ve got nine forwards that consistently give you a pretty good effort every night, and we’re still working through the guys that are kind of complimenting the remaining forward group,” Potulny said. “I feel pretty good about us generating offense.”
As for Halasz, the Wildcats seem to have quickly found their No. 1 goaltender. The freshman from Budapest didn’t get much preseason hype but is, statistically, up there with the league’s best returning goalies (Michigan Tech’s Blake Pietlia and Bemidji State’s Mattias Sholl). Halasz has a 1.98 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage in eight games this season.
“Beni’s won the job. He’s won the room. He’s an infectious kid. His personality is incredible,” Potulny said of the Hungarian. “And he’s still learning. As we go, there are going to be new experiences for him every week, like starting two games on the road, or seeing different teams. He’s still learning on the fly, and we like what he brings.”
The Wildcats host Bemidji State this weekend and hope to continue their winning ways.
“Hopefully some of our struggles early in the year are behind us and it didn’t affect us in league play,” Potulny said. “But I think Bemidji might have a better team this year than they did last year, and I think they had a pretty darn good team last year. Our focus right now is starting the game on time on Friday, and hopefully that sets us up to have a really good weekend.”
