With a brutal October schedule looming, the St. Cloud State Huskies needed to get the season started on the right track. While it wasn’t a perfect beginning to the season, SCSU certainly answered some questions about their scoring.
Joe Rehkamp had two goals, and six other Huskies managed to find the net as No. 7 St. Cloud State routed Trinity Western, 8-0, Saturday night in exhibition action at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
“We did play very well tonight,” Huskies coach Bob Motzko said. “We had great energy and all four lines were playing hard.”
In the first period, the Huskies established a dominant forecheck early, but only managed one goal. Rehkamp set himself up in front of the net and deflected an Ethan Prow shot from high in the slot at 8:30 for the 1-0 lead.
The second period set the tone for the game and gave the HBNHC crowd of 3,657 something to cheer about. Patrick Russell, a 6-foot-1-inch freshman forward from Denmark, received a pass from the boards from fellow freshman forward Blake Winiecki and he backhanded it in for his first collegiate goal and a 2-0 SCSU lead at the 6:53 mark. Rehkamp added his second goal by burying a big rebound at 12:37, and Jimmy Murray followed that one up with his first of the year 33 seconds later to make it 4-0 after two periods.
“Always nice to get a couple in the first game,” Rehkamp said with a smile.
Goals by Brooks Bertsch, Joey Benik, Daniel Tedesco, and Garrett Milan in the third period accounted for the 8-0 final.
“St. Cloud has some great talent,” said TWU coach Barret Kropf.
Overall, the Huskies pounded 62 shots on Spartans goaltender Silas Matthys to set a new school record, and all three goaltenders on the SCSU roster played a period.
Charlie Lindgren played the first period and made seven saves. Rasmus Reijola came in for the second period and stopped five shots. Joseph Phillippi brought up the rear in the third to finish the team shutout with five saves of his own.
Not that these goaltenders needed to really do much in net. The St. Cloud defense was strong all night long, and that’s a good thing considering that the Huskies open their regular season next weekend with a pair of home games against the No. 6 Colgate, which went unbeaten in nine of its last 11 games last season to qualify for the NCAA tournament, where they lost 1-0 to Ferris State.
Game times for the Colgate-St. Cloud State series at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center on October 10 and 11 are 7:37 and 7:07 CT, respectively.
