Up until two weeks ago, Kirklan Irey would have described his season as inconsistent.
The Bemidji State junior winger had only scored one goal in nine games coming into BSU’s nonconference series against third-ranked Minnesota. In game one of that series, Irey found himself playing as the extra skater instead.
That was something of a wake-up call.
“I wasn’t playing great hockey before overall, not really playing a 200-foot game,” Irey said in a phone interview earlier this week. “I had some conversations, some tough ones at times, too. And I think just kind of looking at myself in the mirror, it helps knowing that I had to look at the bigger picture, I needed to play a certain way. And I think that’s kind of helped me in my game these last couple weeks.”
Irey responded that weekend, scoring three goals against the Gophers — including the game-winner in Saturday night’s 3-1 upset of Minnesota — and then added another one this past weekend against St. Thomas.
All of a sudden, Irey is now Bemidji State’s leading scorer, with five goals and four assists for a total of nine points on the season.
“I think the last couple weeks have been a testament to myself,” Irey said, noting that he’s been working harder on the gritty aspect of the game that is so valued within the BSU hockey program. “The goals on the side, those are big for the confidence, and I think overall, it’s just gonna help our team win.”
“He’s playing well. It’s good for Kirklan, because we need him to be good,” BSU coach Tom Serratore said in his postgame press conference on Friday night, after the Beavers had taken two points from St. Thomas via a tie and a shootout. The Beavers would eventually take all five points from the series with a 2-1 regulation win on Saturday night.
The Beavers, now 6-6-1, seem to be turning the corner in some way as a team. After an inconsistent start that included an early three-game losing streak, they’re now riding a three-game unbeaten streak that included the win against the Gophers and the series against the Tommies last weekend.
Although they lost 5-3 in the Thursday night leg of the home-and-home, BSU dominated the Gophers in the third period of the game in Minneapolis. That momentum carried over into Saturday’s game in front of a sold-out crowd at Bemidji’s Sanford Center. Irey scored 20 seconds into that game to give BSU a 1-0 lead, then again 10 minutes later. The Beavers then relied on great defense and goaltending from Mattias Sholl to grind out the 3-1 win.
Irey said he thinks the Minnesota series could be something of a spark for the Beavers.
“We were inconsistent pretty early in the year, up until probably Minnesota here two weeks ago,” Irey said. “I think that first game in Minnesota, we battled hard and kind of found ourselves putting each other in good positions. We were playing simple hockey and looking back at this weekend in St. Thomas, Friday night was kind of a lackadaisical game. But we found ourselves getting two points out of that night. So it’s big points for the standings in the CCHA, and then coming out on Saturday night, we played, we played pretty well and played to our standard, and I think we can keep building off of that.”
Irey’s not the only player who seems to have found his scoring touch as of late.
Northern Michigan transfer Riley Funk scored his first goal in green and white against Augustana Nov. 8. Since then, he’s added three more, including the game winner against St. Thomas on Saturday.
Freshman defenseman Isa Parekh has already demonstrated his lethality on the power play, potting both of his goals with the man-advantage and looking like a solid addition to the lineup.
Senior Eric Martin (nine points), senior Jere Vaisenen (eight points) and transfer Carter Randlkev (six points) have also shown at times that they can be offensive contributors. It’s something the Beavers were looking for after losing Lleyton Roed (to the Seattle Kraken), Kyle Looft (to graduation) and Eric Pohlkamp (who transferred to Denver) in the offseason.
“We knew coming into the season that we couldn’t rely on one or two guys, and we knew coming in that everyone was gonna have to step up. We’re not necessarily going to have two or three 30-point guys, but if we can have a few guys that get over 10 goals, that would be big time. And I think that distribution of offense like we’ve had the past couple weekends is great,” Irey said. ”There’s different guys stepping up into bigger roles and it’s big for our team. Getting goals from Funk this weekend, getting the game winner, to Isa having a couple here, that’s big this last couple weekends. And you know, we have guys like Jere and and Martin and Randklev and (Jackson Jutting), and those guys are going to step up in big moments.”
As it currently stands, the Beavers have 13 points in CCHA play, but because the league is this season determining its winner on a points-percentage basis, they are in sixth place in the conference. That means league points–however they are gained–are valuable. And the way the Beavers have been getting it done has been through a stout defense and strong goaltending from Sholl.
The only time the Beavers have scored more than three goals are a pair of overtime wins (against Minnesota Duluth and Augustana, respectively). More often than not, though, the games the Beavers are best at winning have been low-scoring, grind-it-out games: 1-0 against Minnesota State. 3-1 against Minnesota. 2-1 against St. Thomas.
“We’ve got to be comfortable in those low scoring games, those one, two goal games, and I think we are,” Irey said. “We’re a mature team, we know how to win those games, and we don’t like seeing ourselves getting into a track meet with other teams. So I think keeping a simple game and playing well on our own end, trying to limit teams to under two, three goals a night, that’s what we want to do, and if we can do that, we’re gonna give ourselves a good chance every night.”
The Beavers will put that to the test this weekend when they take on North Dakota in a home-and-home series. Black Friday’s game will be at Sanford Center while Saturday’s trip to Ralph Engelstad Arena will be a return to Irey’s home state.
Growing up, that’s just the only big-time college hockey team around us,” said Irey, a native of Bismarck, N.D. “It’s always fun playing against these guys. I’ve got a lot of family and friends coming to watch too, so I’m excited about that. But with the crowd here on Friday, we’re expecting a good crowd, and we know the energy is going to be there, so I think we’ve got to build off that energy like we did against the Gophers, and I think we’ll put ourselves in a good position to win.
“If we’re going to want to beat these guys, we’re going to have to play a simple game. I mean, we know, we know what it takes to beat a high-level team, and I think we can be a high-level team ourselves, so we’re going to work on what we need to work on and be prepared for it.”
