There’s no getting around the fact that, to date, this hasn’t been a vintage Miami hockey season.
Miami (4-20-2, 1-14-1) sits eight points adrift at the bottom of the NCHC standings. The RedHawks are also winless in regulation in nine games (0-8-1) since Dec. 12, though they did take an overtime shootout Jan. 15 at Minnesota Duluth.
Still, there have been some silver linings during Miami coach Chris Bergeron’s third season at the helm. Injuries, mainly to the forward corps, have made the RedHawks’ campaign tougher, but that adversity has given Bergeron an enhanced read on the makeup of his team.
Freshman forward Red Savage has been a headliner, and his five goals in January helped net him the NCHC’s rookie of the month award. He isn’t the only RedHawk who has been helping his team’s cause, however. Several Miami players held up their end of the bargain last weekend despite their team being swept at home against Denver, ranked fourth in the latest DCU/USCHO Division I Men’s Poll.
“Every night in our league, we’re playing against teams with depth, so we obviously need to have the same type of depth, and with the injuries that we’ve had this year, it has given people opportunities,” Bergeron on Tuesday told reporters during a press conference.
“I would add Jack Olmstead and John Sladic, and (Brian) Silver was in the lineup both nights this weekend. Scott Corbett is starting to find his game a little bit more. Guys that aren’t all over the score sheet typically, what they brought for sure, for sure, was effort.
“Monte Graham is a guy who has given the same basic effort from the day I got here until today. He tries as hard as he can every day. Every faceoff, every drill, he’s as consistent as (anybody) we have, and he doesn’t get necessarily the accolades for it, because usually the guys that get the accolades are the point guys.”
Bergeron also heralded sophomore goaltender Ludvig Persson and Miami’s defense, embattled although not as hamstrung as what the RedHawks have up front.
“What depth allows you to do is hold people accountable for their play,” Bergeron said. “On the back end, we’ve stayed fairly healthy, knock on wood. That’s where the difference has been, because up front, we haven’t been.”
The RedHawks were also praised for how they’ve kept their noses to the grindstone. Last weekend provided good examples of this, as Miami gave Denver plenty of problems.
The Pioneers needed three unanswered goals Friday to win 5-4 in overtime, negating two earlier goals apiece from Savage and Hampus Rydqvist. The Pioneers won again Saturday, 4-2, as DU twice led by two. Second-period goals from Olmstead and Matthew Barbolini got Miami back into that game, before Denver did enough to bump its winning streak to six.
The RedHawks are off this weekend ahead of a home series Feb. 11-12 against No. 18. Omaha. Miami then visits Colorado College in a pair of games that could determine who holds the bottom seed for the upcoming NCHC tournament.
Miami will look to enter the postseason with the right mindset. Bergeron isn’t worried about that.
“The one thing this group has got is resiliency,” he said. “We’ve consistently found ways to lose games, unfortunately, but when we put ourselves in situations where we’re down, we typically dig in and we keep fighting.
“We’re talking about 13, 14, 15 games this season, in that range, where we’ve been tied or had the lead going into the third period, and everybody knows what our record is, so we’ve got to find a way to not lose in those situations so that we can hopefully learn how to win. That’s where we are, but it starts with being resilient, and keep coming even though the scoreboard says, ‘Well, maybe tonight’s not our night.’”
