A Minnesota State-Mankato shot almost hits the Mavericks’ Jakob Stender, front left, while Northern Michigan University’s Anthony Cliche, behind Stender, tries to move out of the way for goalie Ryan Ouellette, right, to make a save at the Berry Events Center on Jan. 10. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

BEMIDJI, Minn. — Could this be the weekend the Northern Michigan University hockey team remembers as turning the corner in its rebuilding process?

It sure looks like it right now after the Wildcats doubled their overall season win total and tripled their CCHA victory count by pulling off a road sweep at Bemidji State on Friday and Saturday nights.

Whether it was simply finishing off offensive chances, getting some puck luck or taking advantage of a not hot goaltender, NMU pulled out 4-1 and 3-1 wins despite getting outshot each night by fairly wide margins.

For the weekend, Northern was outshot 59-35 but got offense from some now-reliable young players like Jakub Altrichter, Matthew Romer and Ryan Duguay.

Oh yeah, and Ryan Ouellette, too. The senior goalie, who’s been asked to all but literally stand on his head at times this season, got in on the scoring with a second-period assist on Saturday night.

While their record is still a rather modest 4-19-1 overall and 3-12-1 in the league, the Wildcats must be seeing their way out of the forest, the jungle or simply the snowfield the season had started as.

Even after the sweep, Bemidji is still a pretty respectable 8-12-4 and 5-8-3 in seventh place in the CCHA.

So this might be a good time for the NMU to have its biggest rival, Michigan Tech, coming up on the schedule this week for the fifth and sixth times this season, counting a preseason exhibition back in early October.

The Huskies have won every one of the games so far, though the most recent one went to overtime with Tech prevailing 4-3 in the third-place game at the Great Lakes Invitational in Grand Rapids less than a month ago.

This weekend’s games will be in Houghton at 7:07 p.m. Friday and in Marquette at 6:07 p.m. Saturday, with television coverage expected on WLUC-TV6 and/or Fox-U.P.

Here are details from the weekend in Bemidji:

————————-

NMU 4, Bemidji St. 1

On Friday, this marked the first time the Wildcats reached the four-goal plateau in a game this season — they’d scored three goals seven times up to this point.

They did it through the skates and sticks of Altrichter and Romer, who combined for three unassisted goals.

Altrichter notched the first two, his first career multigoal game, less than four minutes apart to break the scoreless tie near the game’s midpoint. While not on power plays, both did come during 4-on-4 situations.

Then after the Beavers had pulled to within a single goal early in the third, Romer put the finishing touches on the victory with his own pair of goals also less than four minutes apart, the final one an empty-netter with 43 seconds remaining.

Ouellette made those goals stand up, stopping 24 of the 25 shots he faced, including 11 in the middle period. Bemidji counterpart Mattias Sholl struggled, stopping only seven of the 10 shots he faced — the 11th being Romer’s late tally without Sholl in there.

This game marked the first time NMU won a game with 11 or fewer shots since October 2008 in a 5-2 win over MTU.

Despite the dearth of offense, Northern had some excellent early chances. On one play, Altrichter made a slick move to the forehand and outwaited a sprawling Sholl. Though Altrichter slid the puck past him, it deflected off the post with the rebound coming right to Tynan Ewart at the top of the crease. The latter batted it back toward a wide-open net, but Sholl did enough to keep the puck from crossing the goal line.

With another hit post — which aren’t considered shots on goal — the Wildcats had just one shot on target in the opening period.

Ewart had another great chance with the game still scoreless in the second period, walking the blueline and feeding a backhand pass to Aidyn Hutchinson in the near corner. Hutchinson made a seeing-eye, cross-seam pass to Altrichter sneaking down the left wing, with the latter firing a one-timer from the faceoff dot that Sholl went sprawling to stop.

With offsetting penalties that apparently weren’t simultaneous, the sides skated 4-on-4 into the middle of the period. That’s when Altrichter circled in the bottom right corner before moving to the forehand around his defender. He stepped into the slot, firing a wicked wrister over Sholl’s glove.

Since Altrichter enjoyed that so much, another pair of offsetting minors set up another 4-on-4 about 90 seconds after the first one expired. NMU’s Grayden Slipec gained the blueline on the left wing in a 2-on-1 rush with his centerman streaking down the right-hand side. He made a perfect pass to the wheelhouse of Altrichter, who fired a one-timer over the glove and past the ear of Sholl to make it 2-0.

It stayed that way until early in the third, when Northern was whistled for a penalty and what became the only power play of the game. Just before it was to expire, ex-Wildcat Reilly Funk let go of a pass that traveled through traffic and found Eric Martin on the back door, giving him a tap-in.

NMU’s tense one-goal lead remained until the final 4 1/2 minutes, when Romer stole the puck from a Beaver defender at the Wildcat blue line and scampered in on Sholl with defenders close on his heels. Romer made a decisive forehand-backhand move and slid the puck over the line before crashing into the end wall.

In the final minute with the goalie pulled, Romer stole the puck in his defensive end and fired it the length of the ice, sealing the deal.

————————-

NMU 3, Bemidji State 1

On Saturday, the Wildcats’ eighth three-goal game of the season was more than enough to get a win, with Ouellette not only stopping 33 shots — at least 10 each period — but assisting on Slipec’s mid-second-period goal that made it 2-0.

It iced NMU’s first sweep of Bemidji since Feb. 13, 2021, as Northern built a 3-0 lead, all three goals coming in the second period, before Funk got a puck past Ouellette with about 11 1/2 minutes left.

Duguay, the reigning CCHA Rookie of the Week after he was the hero of last week’s split with CCHA leader Minnesota State-Mankato with all four of the team’s goals, pumped in a power play goal early in the middle period.

Altrichter walked into the left circle and fired a shot-slash-pass along the ice that found the stick of Duguay as he crashed the net as the latter redirected the puck past Sholl.

Then about 10 minutes later and not long after killing off a shorthanded situation, NMU scored on a Bemidji “own goal,” as soccer enthusiasts would say. Hutchinson hit Slipec on a long stretch pass out of the zone that Slipec was able to handle. He made a stop-and-go move on a defender before looking for a cross-crease pass to a crashing forward. But his pass was deflected by a BSU defender, who unintentionally deflected it into his own net.

Northern parlayed that into a 3-0 lead, as barely more than a minute later, Hutchinson blocked a shot and sprung Altrichter and Slipec on an odd-man rush. Slipec drove the net, causing a distraction, and Altrichter dropped a pass to Hutchinson on a weave play. The defender took Hutchinson, who made a nice return pass to Altrichter, who was all alone with a yawning cage.

Bemidji got its only goal on its second power play chance. A shot from the point was deflected wide to the glove side of Ouellette, and the rebound came to Funk’s stick. Behind the goal line, Funk spun and shot a backhand shot that banked off Ouellette as he was getting back to the post and it snuck over the line.

NMU had one more shorthanded situation to kill with about five minutes left. Sholl was pulled halfway through the Beavers’ power play for a 6-on-4 advantage, but while Northern couldn’t take advantage, most importantly, neither could Bemidji.

Altrichter and Hutchinson each had two-point games, Altrichter assisting on Duguay’s goal and Hutchinson on NMU’s final two.

The Wildcats were perfect in 5-on-5 situations over the weekend as both of the Beavers’ goals came on power plays.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release previewing the games. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.