After 10 years of waiting, the dream of home ice in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs is maybe just a win away.
Only four games remain in the regular season and the Falcons with 27 CCHA points are sitting in fifth place with the top six teams earning home ice for the first round. Fourth place Nebraska-Omaha is just two points ahead and sixth place Miami is just two behind. A win by the Falcons and loss or tie by seventh place Alaska-Fairbanks would clinch the first home playoff series for the Falcons since the 1994-95 season.
Two home-and-home series is all that is left starting this weekend when the Michigan State Spartans come to town tonight. It’ll be the second time the teams have met this season in what has been a marquee series in the CCHA.
The two teams split their earlier series in December with both teams winning on the road.
“There have been a lot of real good series with Michigan State for years and years,” head coach Scott Paluch said. “These games are attention grabbers; it’s an exciting time and exciting series.”
This weekend will be no different as each team is fighting for home ice with MSU sitting only four points back of BG (15-11-4; 12-9-3 CCHA) in the eighth spot — a spot many didn’t expect with the Spartans being a pre-season top 10 pick while returning two first-team All-CCHA and second-team All-American selections in Jim Slater and A.J. Thelen.
However, the Spartans (14-14-4; 9-12-3 CCHA) have had struggles that have made everyone just shake their heads in disbelief.
In a league where penalties and special teams have decided many games, the Spartans have been the least penalized team in the CCHA. They’ve averaged only 14.78 minutes a game while their penalty-kill and power-play rank among the middle of the pack. On top of that, their goaltender Dominic Vicari is allowing only 2.34 goals a game which ranks third in the league.
With the special teams stats in place one has to look elsewhere and that place could be having a good balance in the scoring column.
Though their team is averaging 2.94 goals a game, it’s been a consistent few who have been contributing for the Spartans as only 15 players have scored goals this season. Colton Fretter leads the team with 34 points, but behind him are two other players with 20 points or better.
“The more contributing players you have, the better chance you’ll have to be successful, especially this time of year,” Paluch said. “There have been teams successful with having only one line contribute, you look at that [Chris] Kunitz line that Ferris State had two seasons ago [season where they won the CCHA regular season title], that line really carried their team.”
“It’s nice to have balance though and makes it more difficult to defend against.”
Balance has been a big key in the CCHA this season with the top five teams in the league all having at least five 20-plus point scorers. Michigan, who is in first place, has 12 players with 20 plus points while Ohio State in second has nine. Northern Michigan, Nebraska-Omaha and BG all have five a piece.
The Falcons and Northern are the only ones without a 30-plus point scorer, but have had numerous guys contribute as 20 players have scored goals for the Falcons and 21 have scored for Northern. Both teams have a considerable amount of guys in the 10 to 20 point range as well.
For BG, as well as Northern, quality special team stats and solid goaltending have just solidified them as being top five teams in the league.
The Falcons come into the weekend with special teams that have still continued to be strong with a power-play scoring on 18.4 percent of its opportunities and penalty-kill that has off killed-off all but 32-of-161 power-plays this season.
“The most gratifying thing from last weekend was how we responded in the special teams from Ohio State two weeks ago where we didn’t get any points,” Paluch said. “This past weekend [two wins over Western Michigan] was just the opposite and gave us the opportunity to get those four points.”
Jordan Sigalet stopped shot after shot, making 51 saves 54 shots to earn CCHA goaltender of the week honors.
BG’s scoring balance showed up against Western as 14 different players contributed to the box scores. Half the contributions were from freshmen as they accounted for 4-of-9 goals on the weekend which put the season scoring average up to 3.37 goals a game.
“We had real good jump throughout our lineup in both games,” said Paluch of the effort. “We really were tenacious on pucks, we moved our feet well and that’s the way we have to play to be successful.”
Ryan Minnabarriet — one of the Falcons who keyed that success with three assists on the weekend — talked about their balance and how MSU has lacked that same production.
“Getting contributions from younger guys again was unreal and we made it a point to come out and play harder this past weekend,” he said. “Their [MSU] forwards have been struggling for them this year while their d-end [defensive end] has been solid, but they have some good players up there and it’ll be a tough series.”
BG and MSU are both ranked in the national PairWise rankings as well, which are rankings that go into helping to pick the 16-team NCAA field in late March. MSU comes in ranked 17th in large part to their two wins over nationally ranked New Hampshire along with quality wins over Wisconsin, Cornell, Michigan and Ohio State. BG is tied for 28th and needs quality wins to move up.
The puck will drop at the Ice Arena tonight at 7:05 p.m.
