Brian Moos / Program Director

The Huskies opened up conference play with a win versus Miami on Friday, 3-2. Goals from both Miettinen brothers, Veeti and Verner, led St. Cloud State to a victory over the fast-start RedHawks. Miami hung in the contest with SCSU, carried by their netminder Logan Neaton, but Huskies bested the RedHawks in shots, penalties, possession, and doubled them in the faceoff dot 42-20.

The scoring for the Huskies would come early, as the first line would cash in off a great display of passing from Kyler Kupka and Joe Molenaar, leaving Mason Salquist to bury his first goal of the season. After praising his linemates, Salquist humbly stated, “I just took it right to the net, it was a good play.”

Scoring plays would subside for the rest of the 1st period, and most of the 2nd. Miami would level the score off of an astounding deflection goal from William Hallen, which was his second goal of the 2023 season. SCSU would respond quickly with an Adam Ingram shot deflected in by Barrett Hall for what looked to be the Huskies second goal of the game. As Hall celebrated however, the referees disallowed the tip-in on the ice and after a Husky challenge the call stood.

The Huskies wouldn’t be sour for too long though. Veeti Miettinen would pick up a rebound off of a Dylan Anhorn shot from the near corner towards the top of the zone. He would release a shot through traffic that Logan Neaton didn’t see for the Huskies second goal. Veeti Miettinen still leads SCSU with now 4 goals in the 2023 season. With him and Captain Dylan Anhorn both registering points, the two veterans are leading the way with 8 and 6 points respectively.

The Huskies would end up going a on a late 3rd period powerplay, with a chance to put the game away. Balancing between killing time and getting the exclamation point they needed a young forward would score in the dying seconds of the huskies third powerplay. Younger brother Verner wanted to join in on the scoring, after playing many top-6 minutes to start the year. He didn’t have much space, but throwing a puck off of Logan Neaton’s right ear was enough of an angle to score.

“I was actually trying to find a pass… couldn’t find any seam or any hole, so I just tried to shoot it and I guess I got lucky,” Miettinen said postgame. The special occasion of scoring on the same night was not lost on the Freshman either, “It felt amazing… it was such a relief.”

The Huskies will look to sweep and collect all 6 NCHC points on Saturday night at 6 p.m. CDT. KVSC will have the call with pregame starting at 5:30 led by producer Gavin Nelson. Brian Moos will be on play-by-play with Alexander Fern and Zachary Chapman on color and ice-side commentary.