Mavericks 4, Chargers 1

Photo by Jackson Forderer

Freddy's three thoughts of the game:

1. Call on Line 2: I wrote a bit about Reggie Lutz in my gamer (linked below), but the whole second line of Lutz, Jake Jaremko and Max Coatta was excellent — really all weekend. Lutz scored two goals, Jaremko had two assists and Coatta had one assist. "We’re drawing a lot of positivity from them," coach Mike Hastings said, "a lot energy because they played the game the right way the entire weekend."

2. More Michaelis: Marc Michaels (pictured) had another one-timer goal, giving him three for the weekend and giving him a team-leading 19 goals and 39 points for the season. His linemate, Parker Tuomie assisted on his goal and scored another on a pretty play with Charlie Gerard. Tuomie now has 37 points. Gerard has 27 points. All of the team's points Saturday, except for an assist to defenseman Connor Mackey, were scored by players on the  top two forward lines.

3. Killer instinct: The Mavericks killed off all seven of Huntsville's power plays, some excellent work considering Josh French was out of the lineup after taking a puck to the head on Friday. Hastings praised the play of Shane McMahan and Jared Spooner as they picked up some of the slack with French out. MSU doesn't usually go to the box a ton, so that's something that will have to be cleaned up before the semifinals. In all, the Mavericks and Chargers combined for 20 penalties for 48 minutes.

Read my game story here.

Around the WCHA: The top four seeds all swept their first-round series. In Saturday's other games, Lake Superior State defeated Bemidji State 3-1, Northern Michigan beat Alaska 4-3 and Bowling Green topped Michigan Tech 6-2. Minnesota State will host Lake Superior State in next week's semifinals, and Northern Michigan will host Bowling Green.