USHL's best are MSU-bound

It's no secret that Minnesota State is excited about its incoming freshman class. The hype surrounding that group was ramped up even more on Wednesday when the United States Hockey League announced its major awards and three of the five honors went to two future Mavericks.

The USHL's Player of the Year and Goaltender of the Year awards went to Matiss Kivlenieks of the Sioux City Musketeers, and the league's Defenseman of the Year award went to Connor Mackey of the Green Bay Gamblers.

Kivlenieks, a native of Latvia, played in 49 games this season and had a record of 36-7-4-2 with a .932 save percentage, a 1.85 goals-against average and five shutouts, leading the league in all major goaltending categories (he was tied for shutouts). And he saw a lot o pucks, too, making 30 or more saves 16 times, winning 11 of those games. He's the first USHL goalie to win both Player of the Year and Goaltender of the Year since Omaha's Jeff Lerg did so in 2004-05, playing for Mike Hastings.

Mackey played in all 60 games for Green Bay this season, scoring 47 points (6 goals, 41 assists) to lead all USHL defensemen in scoring. His assist total was third in the USHL. He was the only defenseman to finish in the top 20 (16th) in scoring in the USHL. He is a native of Barrington, Ill.

The USHL's Clark Cup playoffs begin on Friday with eight teams in action. That includes Kivlenieks' Sioux City team.

Other MSU recruits for next season and beyond still alive in the USHL playoffs include: Jake Jaremko*,  Reggie Lutz* and Wyatt Aamodt of Chicago; Julian Napravnik of Des Moines; Dallas Gerads* of Dubuque; Shane McMahan of Fargo; and Jack McNeely* and Colby Bukes of Muskegon.

* Already signed with MSU.