Goal scoring comes at right time for playoff-ready Mavericks

By Shane Frederick
Free Press

As I was writing the game story following Minnesota State's 6-4 men's hockey victory over Nebraska-Omaha Saturday night, a woman poked her head into the Midwest Wireless Civic Center's makeshift press room.

"Excuse me," she said. "Do you know where they keep the hats?"

"Hats?" I said. "What hats?"

"The ones that we threw on the ice," she answered.

I didn't know where the hats were kept or if they could even get them back. But surely it was the second week in a row that fans went looking for their lost caps after a Mavericks game.

Two weeks ago, freshman Ryan Carter had the hat trick as the Mavericks upset No. 1-ranked Denver. On Saturday, senior Adam Gerlach scored his first career hat trick and closed the regular season with a five-goal series against Omaha.

If there's anything that might make the University of Minnesota - MSU's opponent in the first round of the WCHA tournament - a little nervous this week, it's that the Mavericks finally seem to have found their scoring touch.

In the most competitive season the WCHA has seen since going to the 28-game schedule in 1997-98, 60 games were decided by one goal or less with 22 going into overtime.

The Mavericks were involved in more of those games - 16 - than any other league team.

Two of those games were against the Gophers - a 3-2 overtime loss on a disputed, kicked-in goal in October and a 2-1 loss where MSU outplayed Minnesota in January.

Ask the Mavericks what they're doing differently and they'll tell you, nothing, really.

"I don't know," said Jake Brenk, who scored Saturday's game-winning goal. "Something's going right, and I like it."

Watch out for flying hats.

Third game's a charm

Don't be surprised if any of the first-round playoff series go the three-game distance this weekend.

The 24 points separating first and 10th place in the WCHA standings marked the tightest league race in the 28-game era.

Here's a glance at the other matchups:

Michigan Tech at Denver: The Pioneers tied for the McNaughton Cup with Colorado College and got the top seed by virtue of tiebreaker. The prize? The Huskies, whose goaltender, Cam Ellsworth, stunned several teams in the second half of the season, including MSU, Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth and, yes, Denver.

St. Cloud State at Colorado College: The Tigers, who boast the WCHA's scoring and goaltending champions (Marty Sertich and Curtis McElhinney) appear to have the best first-round matchup of the upper-division teams. CC lost just seven WCHA games this season, however, one of those came at home to St. Cloud three weeks ago.

Alaska-Anchorage at Wisconsin: The Badgers were set to host MSU until they tripped with a one-point series at Duluth last weekend. Now they have to face the team that upset them in the first round last year. Seawolves backup goalie John DeCaro helped Anchorage gain eight points in its final six league games.

Minnesota-Duluth at North Dakota: The Sioux and the Bulldogs finished fifth and sixth, three points apart, and home ice was up in the air until the final weekend. The teams split their only series of the season in mid-December.

The winner of the WCHA Final Five just might be the team that avoids playing next Sunday night.

Shane Frederick is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6373 or e-mail sfrederick@mankatofreepress.com.