The Huskies' Drew LeBlanc scored a power-play goal at 3:21 into overtime on Sunday to get his team into the Final Five and end the Mavericks season.
Tough night for the seniors. From my perch in the NHC press area, I can see a lot of hugs going around between MSU players and parents. Junior defenseman and assistant captain Channing Boe spoke after the game and said there were "a lot of tears" in the locker room.
"I feel for the seniors," Boe said. "They brought us a long way with their leadership. Those guys got us to where we were tonight. We had a great weekend of hockey. To have it end like that, it's just devastating."
Only six penalties were called in the game, but the crucial one was Joe Schiller's boarding penalty in overtime. I saw him after filing my story for The Free Press and he said that he tried to stop himself and not put himself in a position to take a penalty after seeing Brian Volpei turn with the puck.
Less than a minute later, the game was over.
Freshman Tyler Pitlick and senior Jason Wiley had the Mavericks goals, giving them leads of 1-0 and 2-1, and Phil Cook stopped 23 shots. Geoff Irwin assisted on the second goal for a six-point weekend -- a great series for the senior captain.
A couple of other notes on the seniors: Kael Mouillerat finished his MSU career with 92 points, putting him 10th on the Mavs' Division I scoring list. Zach Harrison played in his 152nd game on Sunday. Only B.J. Abel (155 games) played in more at MSU.
3 comments:
Just to let everyone know, I didn't have a seizure. I just curled up and died a little bit, that's all.
This feels about as bad as the 2008 series. You'd think we'd be used to it by now but nope, still hurts.
I'd just like to take this time and wish the seniors the best of luck and thanks for the fun times. It's a shame they never won a playoff series but it's not like they never tried.
We win by playing Maverick hockey (see Friday night) and lose by playing Maverick hockey (see penalty issues). Next season, let us rock and let us roll!
Good luck to the seniors. Wonder how many will move on right away? My only thought right now on this team is that if we are going to try and be a run and gun west coast style team with offensive D and forwards that are not too defensive minded then we better find a way to score four or more a game. Otherwise we should change our strategy and get more defensive minded players. Offensive wins games , Defense wins championships. Think we found a number one goalie in Cook. Nice to have the D core returning. Lets pray Pitlick comes back and the new freshmen can fill in the front. It will be interesting to watch next year with Omaha and Bemidji coming in. Miss Mav hockey already!!!!
thanks for the great year of coverage Shane! Glad to hear Ian will be around for another year (haha). I am hopeful that next year will be just as exciting, hopefully with a better outcome.
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