MARQUETTE, Mich. — No. 6-ranked Ferris State was outshot 10-0 by Northern Michigan in the opening eight minutes Friday, but the Bulldogs rebounded to extended its nation-best unbeaten streak to 10 games with a 4-1 victory over the Wildcats at the Berry Events Center.
Bulldogs’ junior goaltender C.J. Motte made 32 saves and was 11 seconds away from earning only his second shutout of the season when NMU sophomore forward Cohen Adair beat him on the power play.
Motte said he would have liked the shutout, but what matters most is remaining unbeaten this season at 11-0-1 in his 12 starts.
“Being a goalie, you want to stop every [shot], but realistically, it’s probably not going to happen,” Motte said. “I just go out there and try to give my team a chance to win and every time we win, it’s a job accomplished.”
Ferris sophomore forward Matt Robertson, with some help from freshman forward Chad McDonald, stuffed his fifth goal of the season through a mass of four NMU bodies and Wildcats’ redshirt freshman netminder Mathias Dahlstrom to put the Bulldogs (11-2-1, 8-0-1 WCHA) up 1-0 11:41 into the game.
Five minutes later, a shot by FSU sophomore defender Zach Dorer made it through a couple screens and caught some iron on its way past Dahlstrom give Ferris a 2-0 advantage going into the second period.
Ferris extended its lead to 4-0 via power play goals with FSU freshman Kyle Schempp scoring his sixth goal of the year on a one-man advantage 16:25 into the second and FSU sophomore defender Brandon Anselmini tallying his second goal of the season a fraction of a second before a two-man FSU advantage expired 1:33 into the third.
“I thought we really started off sluggish and slow and I thought Northern really took it to us early,” FSU coach Bob Daniels said. “As the game went on, I thought we warmed to the task.
“We leaned on C.J. awful heavy early in the game until we got going.”
Dahlstrom finished with 17 saves on 21 shots and was relived after Anselmini’s goal 1:33 into the third period. True freshmen Derek Dun came on to stop all eight of the shots he faced in his regular-season collegiate debut.
In addition to Dahlstrom leaving the game, Northern (6-6-1 overall, 4-3-0 in WCHA) lost a pair of its captains and neither will be back for Saturday’s rematch with Ferris in Marquette.
NMU junior forward and alternate captain Reed Seckel, who had scored a goal in each of his previous four games, was ejected along with FSU senior forward Andy Huff 13:44 into the second period for fighting majors. Both are suspended for Saturday’s game.
Late in the third period, NMU lost senior captain and defenseman C.J. Ludwig with a right knee injury. NMU head coach Walt Kyle said after the game Ludwig, who has five goals and seven assists this year, will “be out for awhile” after Ludwig had to be helped off the ice and into the locker room. Ludwig was unable to put any pressure on his right leg.
The Wildcats are already without senior forward Erik Higby, who hurt his wrist a week ago against Alabama-Huntsville.
“Those are good players,” Kyle said. “Ludwig was playing like an all-league guy. You don’t just replace an all-league guy, but we have other guys that need to step up. Our best guys tonight were not our best guys. Our top half of our lineup was did not play like the top half of the lineup and you’re not going to win any games when that happens.”
