{"id":151254,"date":"2025-02-12T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/?p=151254"},"modified":"2025-02-11T23:31:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T05:31:33","slug":"this-week-in-ccha-hockey-minnesota-state-has-got-a-job-to-do-here-as-mavericks-need-to-play-united-to-secure-ncaa-tournament-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/2025\/02\/12\/this-week-in-ccha-hockey-minnesota-state-has-got-a-job-to-do-here-as-mavericks-need-to-play-united-to-secure-ncaa-tournament-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in CCHA Hockey: Minnesota State has ‘got a job to do here’ as Mavericks need to ‘play united’ to secure NCAA tournament spot"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Evan Murr has been a top defenseman for Minnesota State and the CCHA all season long (photo: Noah Ritter).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

College hockey is, almost more than anything, a game of momentum.<\/p>\n

The best teams have the ability to string together wins\u2013even ones in which maybe they aren\u2019t the better team on the night.<\/p>\n

For Minnesota State, finding ways to win a couple in a row had been eluding the Mavericks in the second half of the season. Since returning from the holiday break on Jan. 10, the Mavericks had trouble winning more than two in a row. They didn\u2019t sweep any weekend series, and the one time they did win back-to-back games (Jan. 11 at Northern Michigan and Jan. 17 against Michigan Tech) they failed to keep that string going.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s series against Augustana helped break that string of inconsistency. The Vikings came into Mankato holding on to first place in the conference standings by virtue of points percentage, but left the Mayo Clinic Health Systems Events Center in second place as Minnesota State earned a sweep. After MSU beat St. Thomas in overtime last weekend, it\u2019s their third win in a row.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to have our nose against the wall a little bit and go arm-and-arm through it,\u201d Mavericks head coach Luke Strand said in his postgame press conference on Saturday, referring to his team\u2019s splits in the second half. \u201cWe needed to string a few (wins) together. In the second half here it\u2019s been a little bit of a hump to string some things together, and now it\u2019s starting to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mavericks (20-8-2, 15-5-2 CCHA) won 4-1 Friday thanks to four different goal scorers, then eked out a 2-1 victory on Saturday thanks to a pair of first-period goals by Rhett Pitlick and Fin Williams and 28 saves by Alex Tracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was gutsy. We have some guys dinged up, from illness to just being flat-out injured, but they gutted through it,\u201d Strand said. \u201cWe showed some resilience there to bend and not break. We might have set hockey back in time some moments there in the second period with the ways we were doing some things there, but I thought we gathered ourselves back up very well and got very comfortable in that one-goal game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pitlick, who added two assists on Friday, is tied for the CCHA lead with 32 points through 30 games. St. Thomas\u2019 Liam Malmquist and Michigan Tech\u2019s Stiven Sardarian are also in contention for the conference\u2019s points leader.<\/p>\n

Tracy, who has played in the net for every minute of MSU\u2019s season, stopped a combined 53 shots over the weekend. His goals-against average of 1.53 leads the country and his save percentage of .942 is No. 4 nationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just fantastic. When he\u2019s a warrior behind you, you know what\u2019s going on,\u201d Strand said. \u201cI thought he fought to find rebounds; he fought to fend off traffic in the crease. He didn\u2019t let many pucks roll off him. It was dynamite for our guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mavericks are off this weekend and will watch as two of the teams behind them (second-place Augustana and fourth-place Michigan Tech) play one another for the right to gain some ground. As of right now, the Mavericks are going to be tough to catch, but it\u2019s not impossible: MSU has 46 conference points with a 0.697 points percentage. Augustana is at 26 points and 0.619, Bowling Green is third at 29 and 0.591 and Tech is at 35 and 0.583.<\/p>\n

Despite MSU\u2019s place in the standings, Strand said he wasn\u2019t doing much scoreboard watching. There\u2019s still a lot of hockey left to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not. Our guys, though, I did hear them saying that if we won today we clinched home ice,\u201d Strand said. \u201cSo whoever’s got the formulas out there, I’m not sure. But we\u2019ve just got to put our heads down. We\u2019ve got a job to do here, take care of each other, and play united. I thought we did a good job with that this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

College hockey is, almost more than anything, a game of momentum. The best teams have the ability to string together wins\u2013even ones in which maybe they aren\u2019t the better team on the night. For Minnesota State, finding ways to win a couple in a row had been eluding the Mavericks in the second half of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":151255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[854],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Week in CCHA Hockey: Minnesota State has 'got a job to do here' as Mavericks need to 'play united' to secure NCAA tournament spot - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"College hockey is, almost more than anything, a game of momentum. 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