Huskies Finally End Winless Skid

Lady luck was finally on the side of the Michigan Tech Huskies on Friday.

The Huskies, who hadn’t picked up a win since Nov. 13, picked up three second period tallies en route to a 4-1 win Friday night. It was the Huskies’ first win in 16 games.

“I thought we did a good job all the way around tonight,” said Huskies’ head coach Jamie Russell. “We did a good job in our end.”

Captain Malcolm Gwilliam led the way for the Huskies with two goals and an assist.

“The win’s the most important thing,” said Gwilliam. “I thought the older guys led the way tonight.”

Both squads skated evenly through the first 21 minutes of play. Freshman Kevin Genoe made 10 first period saves including a couple off the stick of Mavericks’ (11-15-2 overall, 5-13-1 in the WCHA) forward Tyler Pitlick. On the other end of the rink, Lee made eight stops of his own, fortunate that Huskies’ forward Jordan Baker missed the net four times over the course of the period.

Senior winger Drew Dobson put the Huskies (4-20-1 overall, 3-16-0 WCHA) on the board just 1:26 into the second period. Baker, an assistant captain, found Dobson crashing the net and hit him with a pass for the one-timer that beat Lee. Junior center Eric Kattelus also assisted on the goal, Dobson’s fourth of the season.

The Huskies struck again almost six minutes later when assistant captain Brett Olson notched his team-leading 13th goal. Olson’s goal came as the direct result of hard work around the goal as he cut across in front of Lee and fired the puck over his left shoulder. Senior defenseman John Kivisto and Gwilliam assisted on the goal.

“A couple of their goals were because we had opportunities to clear the puck out and we didn’t,” said Mavericks’ head coach Troy Jutting. “Their goals were the result of pucks that should have been out of our end.”

Gwilliam extended the Huskies’ lead to three with his goal at 17:38 of the second. Junior winger Bennett Royer got Gwilliam the puck and then proceeded to crash the net while Gwilliam fired on Lee. The resulting collision between Royer and Lee allowed the puck to slip past Lee an in the net for Gwilliam’s ninth of the season.

“Malcolm Gwilliam is a big body and he has good hands,” said Russell. “He did some good things getting pucks on net on the power play.”

The Mavericks took control of the game in the final frame, firing another 11 shots at Genoe, including opportunities where they worked him out of the crease, but they continued to struggle to find a way to sneak anything past him. Genoe would make 30 saves in the win.

Gwilliam picked up his second goal of the night on a four-on-three power play at 15:05 of third. Kivisto had the puck at the left point before feeding the puck to Dobson whose initial shot rebounded out to where Gwilliam could find it for his 10th of the season.

“It feels good to get goals,” said Gwilliam. “Drew had a great shot and I was just able to chip the puck through the goalie’s legs.”

Thirty seconds later, Rylan Galiardi spoiled the shutout bid for Genoe as he stole the puck from a Huskies’ defender and beat Genoe with a quick move to the glove side. The unassisted goal was Galiardi’s sixth of the season.

The Huskies finished 1-for-4 on the man advantage while holding the Mavericks to no goals in four chances.

With the win, Genoe improves to 3-13-1 on the season. Genoe was in goal for the last Huskies’ victory at the hands of the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, a 3-2 win on Nov. 13.