Northern Michigan University’s Jakob Peterson takes a shot at the goal that goes wide during a CCHA game played against Ferris State in Big Rapids on Friday. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

BIG RAPIDS — All’s well that ends well could be a good policy for the Northern Michigan University hockey team, which survived eight rounds of a shootout before emerging with a victory to end its season at Ferris State on Saturday night.

Only one other CCHA team will be able to say it finished on a winning note, since all those teams in the playoffs will lose — save the playoff champion — before those playoffs end.

The Wildcats lost 5-1 on Friday night before coming back to tie the game 4-4 on Saturday night, then go on to earn the league’s extra point by playing overtime and the first seven rounds of the shootout to a standstill before Danny Ciccarello came up with the winner.

NMU finishes its season at 5-27-2 overall and 4-20-2 in the league. Their 16 points was 21 shy of eighth-place Lake Superior State, which took the final playoff spot and goes to regular-season champion Minnesota State-Mankato this week for the best-of-3 quarterfinals.

Ferris ended up in a tie for sixth place at 13-18-3 overall and 12-13-1 in the conference.

Here are details from the trip to Big Rapids:

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Ferris State 5, NMU 1

On Friday, Northern’s Billy Renfrew tied the game 1-1 with a goal just 11 seconds before the first period ended.

It was all downhill from there as the Bulldogs scored the game winner with 5:21 left in the second, then dropped in three more for insurance over the game’s final 10 1/2 minutes.

Ferris could credit its goalie, Noah West, as he nearly blanked the Wildcats despite their getting a season-high in shots with 38 and finishing with a 38-31 shots edge. West made 17 of 18 stops in the first period alone.

NMU’s Ryan Ouellette had 26 saves, including 11 in the third.

It marked just the fourth time all season that NMU outshot the opposition in a game and first time since Dec. 6 in an FSU game in Marquette.

Renfrew scored his only goal of the season and finished with three points by deflecting a shot taken by teammate Trevor Mitchell, whose assist on the play was his first collegiate point.

Zach Faremouth scored Ferris’ first two goals, including the game winner, and had three points, while teammate Caiden Gault had the last two goals scored about 5 1/2 minutes apart in the second half of the third.

Ciccarello, a night before his scoring heroics, was 80% successful — 8 of 10 — on faceoffs, while Grayden Daul, Anthony Cliche and Jakub Lewandowski each had a pair of blocked shots.

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NMU 4, Ferris State 4

On Saturday night, Ciccarello not only netted the Wildcats’ final point of the season with his shootout goal, but actually earned the other point for NMU, too, scoring with 6.8 seconds left in regulation to force the game into extra time.

With the game already starting late to accommodate a celebration of the end of Bulldogs head coach Bob Daniels’ 33-year career, eight rounds of a shootout lengthened it at the other end, too.

All worthwhile for Northern.

What started a scoreless first period ramped up with three goals in the second before all heck broke loose with five goals scored in the final seven minutes of regulation.

Then there was no scoring in five minutes of OT and only one goal by each team through seven rounds of a shootout.

Then Ciccarello stepped up after Ouellette had already denied Ferris’ Hunter Doell to start the eighth round.

That’s when the junior from Quebec who played collegiately for RPI before joining Northern made a decisive shot to the five-hole and Ciccarello became the hero, burying the game-deciding goal.

Back at the end of regulation, the teams had already been in 1-1, 2-2 and 3-3 ties, with the goal causing that third tie looking to be the one that would force OT, considering it came off of the stick of Ferris’ Kaleb Ergang with 1:06 left.

But that wasn’t even close to being the last of the scoring.

With 44.7 seconds remaining, Ferris’ Gavin Best bagged his second goal of the night to stun everyone with the Bulldogs’ first lead of the game, 4-3.

Time was winding down and it looked like FSU would send Daniels into the sunset on a win, but the Wildcats threw a shot on goal with just under 10 seconds to go. Ferris’ West went to cover the puck, while the Wildcats jammed away and scored, though the referees immediately waved it off as a giant scrum ensued.

NMU head coach Dave Shyiak initiated a coaches challenge to see if the continuous play rule applied. After a lengthy review, the officials deemed there was a continuous motion, and awarded Ciccarello the tying goal with 6 seconds left.

Then Daniels got in on the action, countering with a goalie interference challenge, a review that took substantially less time that allowed the goal to stand.

In the shootout, Ouellette and West stonewalled every skater they saw except in the second round, when NMU’s Aidyn Hutchinson and the bulldogs’ Connor McGrath scored. That was, until Ciccarello stepped up in round 8.

Long before that, Grayden Slipec scored twice near each end of the second period to leave Northern on top 2-1 after two.

Just 1:10 into the period on a power play, Slipec let go a wrister from the point that found its way through traffic and beat West by the glove hand on the far side. After FSU tied it barely two minutes later, Slipec doubled his fun on another power play, this time with 53 seconds left in the period.

Jakub Altrichter gathered a loose puck in the left circle and had everyone in the building thinking he was going to shoot, instead sliding a pass over to a wide-open Slipec, who made no mistake in depositing his second tally.

Hutchinson also scored a regulation goal with 4:59 to go when Slipec made a move around his defender to earn a 2-on-1, and after a perfect pass to Hutchinson, the Wildcats had another lead.

Ouellette had a busy night, making 34 saves, including 13 in both the second and third periods and one in OT. That doesn’t even include the seven stops in eight attempts of penalty shots by Ferris in the shootout.

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