From Longview News-Journal
By Josh Dungan
With a pair of Division-II ACHA championships in their back pocket, and a move to the Division-I level approaching, the University of Mary’s men’s hockey team wanted to challenge itself.
The Marauders’ busy second-half schedule will provide plenty of challenges. They have 12 games remaining against teams ranked in the top 20 of both Division-I and Division-II of the ACHA.
“We’re preparing for March,” Marauders head coach Dan Huntley said. “We’re still trying to figure out who we are, what kind of team we are, and what our leadership style is with our captains.”
Not that their first half was lacking challenging opponents.
Through their first 25 games, in which the Marauders went 20-4-1 (4-1 against D-I, 16-3-1 against D-II), they have played 13 games against teams ranked in the top 15 of both divisions and went 9-3-1.
“That’s a pretty good record,” Huntley said. “We’re leading ACHA’s Division II in wins, and we’ve learned a lot from the games we’ve lost. Teams are preparing for us and want to beat the No. 1 team.”
That gauntlet included the Marauders’ first program win over Minot State, the current top team in ACHA D-I.
“Bit of a reversal of weekends (with Minot State and Dakota College-Bottineau),” Huntley said. “Minot State is an unbelievable team, we felt lucky to walk out and be successful and that we can compete at that top level.”
On the defensive end, the improved competition seems to have brought out the best in the Marauders.
After nearly matching their program-best goals-per-game allowed last season — 1.675, just missing the debut season’s 1.660 — the Marauders have allowed an average of just 1.36 goals per game.
That impressive feat has been lead by goaltenders Kyle Hayden and Conan Hayton, who have combined for 11 shutouts and have allowed just 31 goals on 633 shots faced, a goals against average of 1.26 and a save percentage of .953.
“Kyle’s at 14, 15 starts and has nine shutouts,” Huntley said. “To consistently do that is unreal.”
Huntley has full faith in Hayton as well.
“Conan’s the next-best goaltender at D-II and would start on plenty of D-I teams,” Huntley said. “He played well and won us the game against Minot State. We know down the stretch we have two guys we can lean on, and we can get them both rested before the national tournament.”
After averaging no less than four goals a game in any of their first four seasons, the Marauders are down to an average of 3.8 (95 goals in 25 games) this season.
“From the first four years to this year, our goals against are down, but so is our goals scored,” Huntley said. “We’re not scoring as much, so we have to play defense as well as we can and keep ourselves in a position where if we score two or three goals, we can still win that game.”
Their power play has figured into some of those struggles.
The Marauders had five power-play opportunities in their most recent game, a 5-3 loss to Dakota College-Bottineau.
“That’s one of the hardest buildings, besides maybe ours, to go into and play in,” Huntley said of Bottineau’s barn. “They compete hard, know how to forecheck in their building.”
Scoring on any one of their five opportunities would have given the Marauders the tying goal they needed to send the game into overtime.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with how we played,” Huntley said. “We put 110, 115 shots on net (in the two-game series with Bottineau), we just didn’t score enough. We were 0-for-12 on our power play during that series, so one power-play goal on Saturday would have sent us into overtime.”
While the Marauders’ power play has had stretches of effectiveness and ineffectiveness, its penalty kill has been better than ever.
“Our penalty kill is the best it’s been in five years now,” Huntley said. “We’re at 93, 94 percent, and we’ve scored as many shorthanded goals as we’ve given up power-play goals. We put a lot of pressure on teams because we use four sets of killers, we go deep into our lineup with our penalty kill.”
While injuries have forced some unusual line combinations throughout the season, there have been plenty of players continuing their usual levels of success.
Back from a knee injury that cost him the second half of last season, Isaiah Thomas has teamed with Alex Flicek and Caleb Petrie to form the Marauders’ highest-scoring line.
“We’ve been experimenting with line combinations,” Huntley said. “We’ve had a lot of injuries with different guys having to sit out for periods of time, so that brings a different aspect.
“Isaiah had surgery on his ACL in January, so it hasn’t even been a full 12 months yet. He’s rehabbed extremely well. We were cautious with him, and since he’s been in the lineup, we’ve had a boost since we’ve put them together.”
Thomas (nine goals, 14 assists), Flicek (five goals, 16 assists), and Petrie (four goals, 14 assists) were especially dominant in the month of December.
After the line was shut out in their 3-1 loss to Minot State, with Petrie out of the lineup, the trio combined for nine goals and 12 assists in their next four games.
“That’s going to be a special line for us down the road,” Huntley said. “They have the same mentality, play with some grit and excitement, high-IQ hockey guys. It’s fun to watch them.”
Injuries have tested the Marauders’ depth, particularly early on in the season, and it has held up.
The Marauders have had 18 different players score a goal, and 20 players register points.
“Depth has played a major role in our success the last four years,” Huntley said. “We can take our time in getting guys healthy. Guys don’t feel they need to rush back into the lineup. We’ve had some opportunities for guys maybe on our fourth line to jump up to the first line for a weekend to see what they can do.”
Mary’s defensive corps has once again been lead by Drew Lenertz, who is one of 12 skaters in double figures in points and is the lone player to play in every single one of Mary’s hockey games to date.
“He’s at 214 consecutive games,” Huntley said of Lenertz’s ironman streak. “That’s an incredible amount of games to play in a college career. He’ll be missed like our other seniors that have moved on in years past.”
After the semester break, the Marauders have six games against unranked but tough competition in Dakota College-Bottineau, Waldorf University, Midland University (D-I), and the University of Cincinnati (D-II). After that, they have consecutive games against No. 16 D-II Minnesota-Crookston, No. 9 D-I Jamestown, and No. 1 D-I Minot State.
“Our ability to go out and face some great teams in the second half will prepare us well as we go down the stretch towards the national tournament,” Huntley said. “We will have to be ready for every single night. I’m excited to watch the guys develop over the next two months to see where we end up at the end of February.”
(Originally published at https://www.news-journal.com/marauders-set-for-challenging-second-half/article_b347bdad-b253-512e-952e-a6aa77683c37.html)
