Don’t sleep on Ferris State.
Following a disastrous one-win 2020-21 season and a shaky start to this one, the Bulldogs are finally finding their stride. They’ve won five of their last 10 games and, aside from a rough weekend on the road at Minnesota State in which they gave up 14 goals, have managed to get points from every series they’ve played since the start of December.
That hard work has resulted in a much-deserved move up the standings. The Bulldogs (9-17-0, 7-11-0 CCHA) are currently tied for fifth place with 21 points and are only five points – or a series sweep – out of a top-four home ice spot for the CCHA playoffs.
Bulldogs head coach Bob Daniels is optimistic they can get it done.
“With the three-point standings, if you can string a couple wins together, all of a sudden that changes things pretty drastically. I think we’ve got time; we just have to get wins now.”
If the Bulldogs continue to have more series like the one they had in Bemidji last weekend, it would go a long way. Ferris State recorded its first series sweep since 2018 – and its first on the road since February 2016 – with a comprehensive pair of wins over the Beavers.
“I can see we’re close,” Daniels said. “I don’t think we’re there yet. But we’re close. And we’ve been knocking on the door. We’ve found a way to lose a lot of times. I can’t tell you the number of games this year, we’ve gone to the third with a lead only to throw up over ourselves in the last couple minutes. We didn’t do that this weekend.”
On Friday night, the Bulldogs went a goal down early before Dallas Tulik tied it up in the second period. Things appeared headed to overtime until Kaleb Ergang’s putback rebound made it past Bemidji netminder Mattias Sholl for a 2-1 lead. A video review for goaltender interference made for some nervousness behind the Ferris bench, but it was ruled a good goal. The Bulldogs held on to win and finished off the sweep on Saturday for a 5-2 win that didn’t seem that close.
“I like what I saw when we took the lead on Friday night,” Daniels said, contrasting that with the previous week, when the Bulldogs lost to St. Thomas in the final seconds on Saturday night after battling back to tie in the third period. “Our composure in the final minute was much better than it was the week before when guys were running all over the place. I just like the composure of the team with the lead on Friday and again on Saturday.”
Daniels has also noticed that his team seems to be getting tighter defensively as of late. Aside from that series in Mankato – the Mavericks score a lot of goals on everybody – the Bulldogs have done a decent job keeping the puck out of the net. They’ve been averaging just over three goals allowed a game since December, a vast improvement from the first three months of the year, when they were averaging over four.
“I thought defensively, we’re improving, and our puck management has improved greatly,” he said. “We were giving up lots of odd-man rushes at the beginning of the year. We slowly have gotten that under control. So, you know, if we continue to play good defensively, manage the puck well and show some composure, we will start winning even more.”
One big reason that the Bulldogs played so well against Bemidji was the emergence of new goaltender Noah Giesbrecht. Giesbrecht, a freshman, joined the team after Christmas. He started both games against the Beavers and made 61 saves on the weekend to earn the team two victories (and was himself named the CCHA’s goaltender of the week for his efforts). Daniels said that adding Giesbrecht has given him another solid option in the nets along with sophomore Logan Stein.
“We feel that we’ve got two good goaltenders now, and I think it’s good to just make the goaltending situation better,” Daniels said. “I think there’s going to be more competition for playing time and then when you have that it helps all the goalies, and it makes you work that much harder. So we’ve got a good healthy competition there. I feel really good about Logan and his future and obviously we like Noah quite a bit too.”
The Bulldogs have eight games remaining before the first round of the CCHA playoffs, and because positions two through seven in the standings are so tight, all eight games really matter for everyone involved. This has become par for the course – it was true in the WCHA in seasons past, and that hasn’t changed at all.
Ferris hosts Bowling Green this weekend before getting a bye weekend. After that, they have three more series until the playoffs.
“As high as we can get in the standings, we have to keep improving our defense and make sure that when we hit the postseason, we hit it on an uptick,” Daniels said. “If we can get those things in place we’ll be in good shape.”
