By Alexander Fern / Sports Director / @AlexInTheBooth

The 15th Ranked (13th in PairWise) St. Cloud State Men’s Hockey Team begins a crucial final stretch of their season this weekend when they welcome the 13th ranked Western Michigan Broncos to the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center for what is a crucial weekend not only for the race to the Penrose Cup , but also for NCAA tournament purposes.

LAST TIME OUT

The Huskies are coming off of a sweep in Oxford Ohio over a very tricky Miami team that has taken points from North Dakota, UMD, and even Western Michigan this season. SCSU won game one by a score of 5-2, in a game where they didn’t play their best, but still scored five goals. Game 2 was a different story, it finished with a 3-1 scoreline, but Husky head coach Brett Larson said that it was one of their best performances so far this season.

“I thought it was a great hockey game,” Larson said. “I thought we were flying up the ice, making plays from north to south, and east to west. I thought it was one of our best team games this season.”

Dylan Anhorn garnered NCHC Defenseman of the week honors after the series in Ohio. Anhorn ended the weekend with two goals, both of them were the game-winning-goal, giving him six on the season. He also posted a +1 plus/minus in the series, blocked a shot and fired three shots on goal. Anhorn now has 26 points on the season, which is second among NCHC defensemen and ninth among NCAA blueliners, and he sits in sixth in the NCHC in assists with 20.

Isak Posch made his return on that Saturday for The Huskies after Dominic Basse made the start and got the win on Friday. Basse made the saves he needed to, but it wasn’t his best game ever, he’d tell you that himself. Posch made the start for the first time since January 13th when he backstopped the Huskies to a Tie (Shootout Win) against the offensively powerful Denver Pioneers.

BRONCOS COUNTRY…

Western Michigan is a tough case to understand.

They have two of the top 10 goal scorers in the country with Dylan Wendt and Sam Colangelo, but they are 2-4 in their last six with losses to very good teams in Colorado College x2, Denver, and Omaha.

This is also a team that welcomed SCSU to their home barn earlier this season, an arena where SCSU had not WON in since 2019, and got swept by the Huskies who were 4-4 at the time a few weeks removed from being swept by MSU-Mankato, and a home loss to Alaska-Fairbanks.

Both of these teams have evolved since they last met in Kalamazoo in November. When the Huskies traveled to WMU in November, the Broncos were the best faceoff team in the country by far. Now, they sit 10th, and 2nd in the conference.

Cameron Rowe has been WMU’s leading goaltender all season long, and has been solid. He sits with a .912 save percentage and is 17-10-1 this year. He has been solid with flashes of Richter candidacy, but he has also let in a few soft goals, including a few to SCSU earlier this year.

The Broncos are 39th in the country in PIM this season, (SCSU sits 54th) but most of that came against Denver in Kalamazoo this weekend where at one point WMU had 4 men in the box at one time. WMU also has the 14th best PK in the country, although they will be going up against an SCSU power-play who had a great weekend in Oxford. SCSU went 1-7 on the PP in Kalamazoo earlier this season.

IMPORTANCE…

This is new territory for SCSU after the past few years.

SCSU sits 13th in the Pairwise right now which means that they would be the top 4 seed in the NCAA tournament as of now, but they cannot really afford to lose any games as of now. For them to comfortably make the NCAA’s I predict that SCSU would need to go 4-2 in their final six games (WMU, DU, UMD). I think that they can afford to go 3-3, but that would be cutting it very close. Although I’m sure the team would just say to win and that way there would be no worries.

In the NCHC, the Huskies sit right behind UND with 36 conference points to their 37. UND is playing Duluth this weekend so that will be a series to keep an eye on for Huskies fans. The Penrose race is very tight this year and it will be very interesting to watch as the season winds down to a close.

HOW TO TUNE IN

Both games this weekend will be broadcast live on 88.1FM KVSC with Brian Moos on play-by-play duties and Alexander Fern providing the analysis. Gavin Nelson will be back in studio for your pregame, post-game, and intermission reports. Pregame begins 30 minutes before puck drop

The series gets underway at 7:00 P.M. on Friday, NOT 7:30. CBS Sports Network is broadcasting the game on Friday, hence the time change. On Saturday, the game begins at 6:00.

KVSC is proud to bring award-winning, student-run Hockey broadcasts to our listeners!!!