After being held scoreless on Friday night, No. 4 Michigan Tech co-captain Tanner Kero was involved in all three of his team’s goals as the Huskies completed a sweep of the Northern Michigan Wildcats with a 3-1 win at the Berry Events Center Saturday night.<\/p>\n
With the win, the Huskies did their part in pursuit of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association regular season title.<\/p>\n
“All we can do is take care of our business,” said Huskies coach Mel Pearson. “I thought our guys did a real good job tonight given the circumstances. It’s a rivalry game, a lot of emotion. We found a way to win the game.”<\/p>\n
“It was definitely a big win,” said Kero. “We had to finish the season strong and just put ourselves in a big opportunity to win the MacNaughton Cup. We just had to come out and get a big win here.”<\/p>\n
The Huskies have won 26 games for the first time since 1976. That also happens to be the last season the Huskies won the WCHA regular season title.<\/p>\n
The Wildcats (14-16-6 overall, 11-13-4 WCHA) needed a better start than the one they had Friday night, and seemed to be on their way toward getting it in the early going.<\/p>\n
“Kudos to Tech,” said Wildcats coach Walt Kyle. “I think they have a very good team and do a very good job. I thought we were better tonight than we were last night. I think we took a step.”<\/p>\n
Reed Seckel pounced on a rebound just 40 seconds into action, but Huskies goaltender Jamie Phillips made the save.<\/p>\n
Michael Doan was tested at the other end some 18 seconds later when Reid Sturos fired a long shot that Doan misplayed with his glove. Fortunately for the hosts, the puck then ricocheted off the post. He finished the night with 37 saves.<\/p>\n
The Huskies (26-8-2 overall, 21-5-2 WCHA) were awarded a power play when Dominik Shine was whistled for charging at 6:48, and needed nearly the full two minutes to find the back of the net.<\/p>\n
Kero fed the puck to Malcolm Gould in the left corner, who passed it to Tyler Heinonen in the slot, who fired a shot that beat Doan at 8:40.<\/p>\n
The Huskies extended their lead 1:57 into the second when assistant captain Alex Petan dug the puck out behind the net, saw Kero cutting through the slot, and fed him a quick pass. Kero one-timed the pass home. It would stand as the game-winner.<\/p>\n
Sturos gave the Huskies a three-goal lead just after a power play ended at 9:15. He fired a shot from the slot, and while Kero crashed the net, Doan fell backwards, knocking the puck in.<\/p>\n
“He’s very important,” said Pearson when asked about Kero. “You can tell just by his speed on an Olympic ice sheet. He’s got that confidence that comes along with being a senior and being a good leader. He knows we need him.”<\/p>\n
A scrum ensued after the goal, leading to five players receiving penalties, including Zach Urban of the Wildcats, who was given a five-minute major for facemasking. The Huskies did not score on the advantage.<\/p>\n
Kero had another good scoring chance early in the third when he skated in and fired a wrist shot that Doan stopped. The rebound kicked back at Kero, bounced off his skate and over Doan, but missed the far post.<\/p>\n
From that point forward, the game broke down into a parade to the penalty box. The teams combined for 14 of the game’s 24 penalties in the period.<\/p>\n
Phillips’ bid for a fifth shutout on the season was snapped at 19:05 when Purpur tipped shot from Maschmeyer.<\/p>\n
[youtube_sc url=http:\/\/youtu.be\/Ok2BLqsLiiA width=500]
\n[youtube_sc url=http:\/\/youtu.be\/98R2Z_mAre8 width=500]
\n[youtube_sc url=http:\/\/youtu.be\/OeFAHyc6ywc width=500]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After being held scoreless on Friday night, No. 4 Michigan Tech co-captain Tanner Kero was involved in all three of his team’s goals as the Huskies completed a sweep of the Northern Michigan Wildcats with a 3-1 win at the Berry Events Center Saturday night. With the win, the Huskies did their part in pursuit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20590,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20589\/revisions\/20590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20589"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=20589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}