The #4/5 St. Cloud State University men's hockey team (19-5-1, 11-3-1 NCHC) stretched its current unbeaten streak to three games thanks to an 8-2 victory over Western Michigan University (7-13-1, 4-8-1 NCHC) on Friday, Jan. 22 at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center in St. Cloud, Minn.
The victory helped the Huskies maintain its spot atop the NCHC standings with 35 points after the games of Jan. 22. North Dakota sits in second place in the league with 30 points after it skated to a 5-5 tie against Colorado College, which ended with UND getting the extra league point in the shootout.
The Huskies and Broncos will complete their weekend series at the HBNHC with a 7:07 p.m. game on Saturday, Jan. 23. Great tickets are still available for this game and you can purchase them at the gate or online at www.scsutickets.com. Capital One will be handing out scratch off tickets to the first 1,000 fans attending the game. Several great prizes will be awarded to the lucky scratch off ticket winners.
The first period of the game on Jan. 22 was a closely contested affair that saw WMU outshoot the Huskies 10-7. Senior forward Joey Benik offset that stat by charting the game's first goal at 14:04 of the opening period with a solo assist from Patrick Newell.
In the second period, SCSU's Ethan Prow pushed the score to 2-0 with his power play goal at 3:06 as assists went to Patrick Russell and Joey Benik. The eventual game winner was then scored by senior forward Kalle Kossila at 4:43 with his unassisted goal, which was his 10th goal of the 2015-16 season. Joey BenikThe Huskies padded their lead to 4-0 with a goal by Newell at 4:59 of the second period as David Morley and Benik issued assists on the play. Morley continued the second line assault with his goal at 9:09 of the second period, which included helpers from Benik and Schuldt. SCSU ended the period with a 5-0 lead.
WMU managed to break the shutout in the third period with a goal by Michael Rebry at 1:16. The rally was short-lived as Newell scored his second goal of the evening and his sixth goal of the season with a marker at 4:55 of the third. Benik added his fourth assist of the night on the goal, which was also his fifth point of the game.
Schuldt continued SCSU's roll in the third with a goal at 8:29 on assists from Blake Winiecki and Niklas Nevalainen. WMU replied with a goal at 9:06 of the period by Sheldon Dries to make it 7-2. The Huskies finished the evening at 19:06 of the final period with a power play marker by Winiecki that made the final 8-2. Nevalainen and Jimmy Murray each had assists on the play for the Huskies.
On the evening, WMU outshot the Huskies 36-31 in the contest. The Huskies were 2-5 on the power play and WMU was 0-5. In the nets, Charlie Lindgren had 34 saves as he scored his 18th victory of the 2015-16 season. Lukas Hafner was the goalie of record for WMU with seven saves and four goals allowed in 24:59 of play. Tervor Gorsuch completed the game for WMU with 16 saves and four goals in 35:01 of play.
Game Notes and News:
The trio of Benik-Morley-Newell accounted for 10 points in the game, which included four goals and six assists.
The goal tonight was Benik's 50th career goal as a Husky and his career point total moves to 105. Morley now has 108 career points, which includes 47 goals and 61 assists for the Huskies.
Of note, Benik was just one assist and one point shy of the team's current game records of five assists in a game and six points in a game. In 2015-16, Benik has scored six goals and five assists in three games played against WMU this season.
Ethan Prow now has 16 goals, 69 assists and 85 points during his career at SCSU. He leads all DI blueliners this winter with 19 assists and ranks second with 24 points. For all DI players, Prow ranks sixth in the nation with 0.90 assists per game.
The Huskies lead the nation this season with 19 wins.
SCSU was ranked #2 in the Pairwise rankings after the victory over WMU tonight.
Charlie Lindgren ranks second in the nation in the nets with 18 victories.
SCSU leads the nation with 106 goals scored this season and is second in the country with a scoring rate of 4.24 GPG.
SCSU ranks seventh in the nation with a 1.96 goals allowed per game average this year.
SCSU ranks fourth in the country on the power play at 28.0 percent (26-93)
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