Going into this weekend’s series between BGSU hockey (7-5-3, 5-3-3) and the Northern Michigan University Wildcats (1-16-0, 1-8-0), NMU was one of only two teams in college hockey to have not claimed a win, with the Wildcats losing their first 16 games of the season.
NMU broke their losing streak last night via a 3-2 win over the Falcons.
Going into the game, Bowling Green had two notable missing pieces from their blue line as junior defenseman Gustav Stjernberg and senior Jackson Niedermayer were both absent from the lineup due to injuries.
“When you’re missing a couple guys there like Goose (Stjernberg) and Nieds (Niedermayer) on the backend, you see how effective they are out there,” said head coach Dennis Williams.
Both teams had an influx of young players in last night’s game, with Bowling Green having a total of nine freshmen in the lineup and NMU sporting five of their own.
Northern Michigan would start the scoring in the first period with senior forward and alternate captain Caiden Gault ripping a shot past sophomore goaltender Tyler Palmer while on a two-on-one rush. Junior forward Girts Silkalns was credited with the lone assist on the play.
The Wildcats would extend their lead in the second period when freshman forward Landon MacDonald would outwork freshman defenseman Brayden Crampton for a puck before scoring on a one-on-one opportunity with Palmer. Senior forward Danny Ciccarello and freshman forward Tyler Stern were credited with assists. Stern’s contribution to the play gave the Plainview, New York native his first career collegiate point.
Silkalns would score his second point of the game and his first goal as a Wildcat after transferring from UMass Lowell University (6-9-0, 3-4-0) to give the Green and Gold a 3-0 lead early in the third period. The assists on the play were credited to sophomore forward Grayden Slipec and junior defenseman Warren Clark.
Bowling Green seemed to finally wake up after the third Wildcat goal and began showing signs of life.
When asked about his team’s performance before NMU’s third goal, Williams said, “ I didn’t see much. It was very blah. There was no fight in us, there was a lot of guys talking like they wanted to play hard and play right, lotta guys complaining about wanting interference calls instead of just putting their energy in working and playing.”
BG would outshoot NMU 22-4 in the third period and were able to find two goals, which would stand as an example of too little too late.
Freshman forward Connor Levis would score the first Falcon goal of the night during a net front scramble that would see Levis score on his own rebound. Senior defenseman Jack Blake was awarded the lone assist on the goal.
Junior forward Brody Waters would score the only other goal of the game for the Orange and Brown with one minute and four seconds remaining in the third period after BG pulled Palmer for the extra attacker. Junior forward Ben Doran and freshman forward Jérémie Minville were credited with assists on the play.
Bowling Green had multiple missed opportunities in the third period, including a stretch of five minutes and 31 seconds straight where BG was on an ongoing power play opportunity due to three straight Northern Michigan penalties.
Northern Michigan’s junior goaltender William Gramme finished the game having made 34 saves and recorded a .944 save percentage.
Palmer would finish the game with an .850 save percentage after saving 17 of the 20 shots he faced.
Coach Williams was not happy with his team’s performance or effort throughout the game.
“We didn’t do enough to get to the inside, up until we had some power plays, we didn’t really generate a lot of zone time, a lot of grind time. We gotta do a much better job getting inside the dots. Going into that third period, we were 47% on the faceoffs, so that’s always an indication of your willingness to battle and compete,” said Williams.
“We have to take a big look in the mirror here, tonight, before we go to bed, and figure what it is we wanna be. Like I say to our group, we take two steps forward than one step back, and we have to be a much more mature group. We’re at the halfway point where certain returners need to elevate, buy in better, new players need to buy in better, and execution needs to be better.”
“There’s no other alternative tomorrow; it’s a must-win for our group,” said Williams.
Coach Williams and the Falcons will look to salvage the series tonight with puck drop scheduled for 6:07 p.m. at the Slater Family Ice Arena.
Falcon Media Sports Network’s Ben Corak will be joined by Nathan Burkett on the call on WBGU 88.1 FM.
