Kael Mouillierat says he’s a pretty superstitious guy when it comes his hockey game, so he’s willing to try just about anything now to get out of his goal-scoring slump.
Whether it’s the food he eats, the gum he chews or even the socks he wears, he’ll change things up if it means that pucks will start going into the net for him.
Mouillierat scored 17 goals for the Minnesota State men’s hockey team last season despite missing eight games, and his 16 goals in Western Collegiate Hockey Association play ranked second in the conference.
Through 10 games this season, though, Mouillierat has just one goal, and the Mavericks are averaging just two goals a game against conference opponents.
“Other than scoring goals, I’ve been pleased,” coach Troy Jutting said of his team’s most recent weekend — a 1-0 overtime defeat and a 3-2 loss to now-No. 7 Colorado College. “Defensively, I was pleased. The penalty kill, I was pleased. The power play, I was pleased. Goaltending, I was pleased. We created good offense; we just did not finish.”
Minnesota State has averaged 30 shots on goal in its eight league games, but it’s been shut out twice and held to two goals three times, too. On Friday, Tigers College freshman goaltender Joe Howe built a brick wall in front of his net to blank the Mavericks, while the next night, he could have finished off a career highlight video with the kinds of saves he made throughout the night.
“We made plays all night,” Jutting said. “We just didn’t get it by (Howe).”
The Mavericks appear to have the shooters, but do they have the finishers?
The mantra out of All Seasons Arena has been, “As long as we keep getting chances, the goals are going to start coming.”
Certainly, the effort has been there, especially over the last five games — ever since that lackluster 6-0 home loss to Wisconsin. The Mavericks turned around and beat the Badgers 3-2 the next night, went to then-No. 2 Denver where they lost 4-3 and tied 4-4 before the Colorado College weekend when Howe earned his second WCHA rookie-of-the-week honor already this season.
As a player for MSU in the mid-1980s, Jutting scored 66 goals in 136 games, a number that still ranks 13th on the Mavericks’ all-time list. So what did he do when he went into a scoring funk?
“You just have to keep working hard,” he said. “The biggest thing for me was: You gotta believe. You gotta believe that they’re going to go in the net for you. Some people shoot just to shoot, and some people believe they’re going to score a goal every time they shoot the puck.”
Maybe this weekend at Alaska-Anchorage, Mouillierat and his teammates can sprinkle a little of that belief on their food, on their gum and maybe even in their socks.
Shane Frederick is a Free Press staff writer. Click here to access his college hockey blog or e-mail him at sfrederick@mankatofreepress.com.
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