NMU Hockey: The Story So Far
The Northern Michigan University Wildcats men’s hockey team is now more than halfway through their 2018–19 season. After returning from their extended stay in Alaska, they had this past weekend off (apart from an inter-squad outdoor game on Sunday) to prepare for their toughest home stand of their WCHA conference schedule. It’s a good time to look back at the season so far to see where the Wildcats stand, how they got here, and what lies ahead.
Rebuild and Reload
The Wildcats lost a handful of their top scoring players to graduation last year. Most notable of these departures are forwards Robbie Payne (24–10–34) and Zach Diamontoni (6–18–24), and defenseman Jordan Klimek (3–15–18). Also gone are Filip Starzynski (graduation) and back up goaltender Mathias Israelsson (transferred to Minnesota State). Northern’s top five forwards this season are all returning players, including Adam Rockwood, Troy Loggins, Denver Pierce, Darien Craighead and Joseph Nardi. The bottom six forwards are mostly freshman, with Griffin Loughran leading the way, along with Ty Readman, Grant Loven, Garrett Klee, Jarett Lee, and Vincent De May. On defense, Philip Beaulieu returns as a steady two-way presence. He is top 10 among defenseman in the nation in scoring. The Wildcats added Notre Dame transfer Tony Bretzman, who has three goals and four assists so far this season, and seems to be finding a larger role for himself than what he had with the Fighting Irish. Ryan Black, Adam Roeder, Robert Fosdick, James Vermeulen, Connor Frantti and Matthew Acciaioli round out the blue line for NMU. While the stats might not be as impressive yet as they were last season, the Wildcats’ healthy mix of experience and youth has started to come together this season to produce a decent amount of wins.
Out of Conference Gauntlet
Second year head coach Grant Potulny wanted to prove that his Wildcats could compete with the nation’s best, and that showed by the toughness of NMU’s non-conference schedule. On this schedule was three of last season’s NCAA tournament #1 seeds, plus an interstate Big Ten opponent. The Wildcats started their season with a trip to East Lansing for two games against the Michigan State Spartans at the Breslin Center. NMU lost the first game but took home their only non-conference win in the second game against the Spartans. Potulny’s squad followed up this effort with a trip to Minnesota and what was easily their poorest showing of the season: back to back losses to St. Cloud State, 1–4 on Friday and 0–4 on Saturday. After a couple of early conference series, the Wildcats hosted Cornell for a pair of games, but were again defeated both nights. NMU’s final non-conference game was a trip to South Bend, Indiana for a Tuesday night tilt against a powerful Notre Dame team that played in the national championship game a season ago. This game saw the Wildcats play their best in a loss, falling 2–1 in overtime. Although the non-conference schedule did not produce the wins that Potulny had hoped for, the brutally difficult nature of that schedule allowed the Wildcats to play elite opponents and grow together as a team, setting themselves up nicely to compete during the WCHA season.
Get Joshua Kaskinen’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
WCHA Successes
Despite the less than favorable outcome of the non-conference schedule, NMU has put themselves in a good spot to contend for some postseason hardware by performing well so far during the WCHA conference schedule. At the moment, the Wildcats stand at 12–4–0 in league play, and are third on the standings table with 36 points, behind Minnesota State and Bowling Green, though NMU has two fewer games played than either of those teams. Northern has not been swept by a WCHA team, earning splits with Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Lake Superior and Michigan Tech. They swept Alaska-Anchorage in Marquette back in February, and have done what they needed to do by sweeping weaker opponents as of late. The Wildcats are currently on a six game winning streak that started back in the middle of December with a home sweep of Ferris State, and continued through all four games of the Alaska trip. NMU will have to continue this strong play against much tougher opponents in the weeks to come if they hope to win the conference title.
Atte’s World
Senior netminder Atte Tolvanen has been stellar in goal for the Wildcats, and one of the top goalies in the nation. Tolvanen has played in every game so far for NMU, and has only given freshman backup Nolan Kent less than five minutes of play time when he was injured in a mid December game against Ferris State. He has played well in nearly every game, only allowing four or more goals in three games. He has great stats as well, his 2.06 goals against average and .925 save percentage are both impressive numbers considers the amount of ice time he has logged. He even has a viral moment this season, scoring an empty net goal against Michigan Tech. He is the 11th NCAA goaltender to be credited with a goal, and the first in NMU history. Tolvanen has continued to climb up the Northern Michigan record books during his senior season, and when it’s all said and done, the Finnish goalie could very well have the most games played and the most shutouts in school history. It would be nice to see Coach Potulny give Kent some ice time so that he can get some meaningful minutes to continue his player development, but when you have a goalie as reliable and sturdy as Tolvanen, it’s hard to blame a coach for living in the now, and getting wins every chance he gets.
Light the Lamp
The top of the statistics page for the Wildcats this season is occupied by the veteran players who you would expect to be the scoring leaders. Leading in points for NMU are Philip Beaulieu and Troy Loggins, with 21 points each. Loggins also leads the team with his 10 goals, followed by Darien Craighead and Denver Pierce. Griffin Loughran leads the freshman with his nine points (2–7–9) and sophomore Joseph Nardi has been a consistent scorer as well (6–4–10). While scoring for the Wildcats hasn’t been as frequent as it was last season, the veterans have stepped up to produce offense and the team the has played well enough in front of Tolvanen to continue to win.
What’s Next?
After a restful weekend, Potulny’s squad will return to the Berry Events Center in Marquette to face league leading and #7 ranked Minnesota State. The easiest part of the league schedule is now firmly in the Wildcat’s rearview, as they will follow their series with the Mavericks with another home series against #9 Bowling Green before heading to Alabama-Huntsville and Bemidji. Then they will return home for a second matchup with Lake Superior. Finally, NMU will finish the season with a home-and-home against archrival Michigan Tech. Northern has put themselves in a good position to win the WCHA regular season title, but they will have to win when they are expected to against Huntsville and Bemidji, and steal wins against Minnesota State and Bowling Green, while earning at least splits against Tech and Lake Superior. The end of the conference season should prove to be an interesting one, with the top six teams all in position to at least make a run at the regular season title. Potulny gambled with his out of conference schedule, hoping that winning against some of the best teams in the nation would pay off in terms of getting selected for the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately, NMU didn’t perform as well as they would have hoped during their non-conference schedule, nor did they get enough help from their WCHA counterparts to boost themselves high enough in the PairWise rankings to be considered for an at-large bid for the tournament. This means that the most likely scenario for the Wildcats to make an appearance in the NCAA tournament is by getting an automatic bid by winning the WCHA playoff tournament, a task that evaded them by the slimmest of margins last season. Whether or not they make it to the big tournament for the first time in nearly a decade will depend on if they can continue their strong play of late, but it’s sure to be a wild ride either way.
