The young college hockey season provided fans with its first top 10 upset on Saturday as Michigan Tech head coach Bill Muckalt picked up his first behind the Huskies bench, 5-3, over No. 8 Minnesota.
The road victory earned a weekend series split for the Huskies with the Gophers.
Michigan Tech spotted the hosts a 3-1 lead in the first on Minnesota goals by Brody Lamb, Tyler Miller and Erik Pahlsson sandwiched around a Tyler Miller strike for Tech.
From that point, though, it was all Huskies.
Luca Fasciano scored late in the first to draw within a goal at 3-2.
Teydon Trembecky and Max Koskipirtti scored 53 seconds apart late in the second to silence the Mariucci crowd and give Tech its first lead of the game.
The two teams faced a similar situation on Friday only to see Minnesota rally from 3-2 down with four goals in the third in a 6-3 win.
Saturday, Muckalt’s club buckled down defensively and Noah Reinhart’s empty-netter with 35 seconds remaining sent the Huskies back to Houghton with a victory.
No. 2 Boston University 4, LIU 2
No. 2 Boston University opened its season with a 4-2 victory over LIU paced by two goals by last year’s national rookie goal-scoring leader Cole Eiserman.
Mikhail Yegorov earned his first win of the season for the Terriers, stopping 36 shots including 15 in the third period alone.
Eiserman opened the scoring at 5:54 of the first on a play set up by Hutson. The Terriers led 1-0 through 20 minutes despite a 13-6 shot deficit.
LIU found the equalizer early in the second when Casey McDonald scored. But Sacha Boisvert gave the hosts a lead they wouldn’t relinquish scoring with 3:20 left in the second.
Cole Hutson and Sixten Jennersjo traded tallies in the third before Eiserman closed things out with an insurance marker with 3:28 remaining.
No. 5 Penn State 4, No. 14 Arizona State 2
For the second straight night, fifth-ranked Penn State found itself trailing through 40 minutes. And for the second straight night, four third-period goals was just what the doctor ordered.
Much talked-about rookie Gavin McKenna notched his first collegiate goal on the power play with 1:53 remaining to cap the comeback for the Nittany Lions. Penn State dug itself in a 2-0 hole through two periods on goals by Bennett Schimek and Cruz Lucius for the Sun Devils.
Nicholas Chin-DeGraves cut the gap to a goal at 5:29 of the third scoring shorthanded. And JJ Wiebush evened the score at 8:30.
That set the stage for McKenna, who was the highest profile recruit from the Canadian Hockey League after the NCAA paved the way for Major Junior players to compete in college hockey. McKenna notched two assists in Friday’s series opener to finish his first collegiate weekend with three points.
Dane Dowiak’s empty net goal with seven seconds remaining sealed the win for goalie Kevin Reidler, who finished the game with 45 saves.
