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  • Michigan Tech's Patrick McCadden flips the puck behind Minnesota State's Phil Cook for a goal during the first period Saturday at the Verizon Wireless Center. Pat Christman

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February 5, 2012

MSU hockey review: Minnesota State remains trendy

By Shane Frederick Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO — A couple of trends continued for the Minnesota State hockey team over the weekend:

  1. The Mavericks split yet another series with a 5-3 win and 7-3 loss against Michigan Tech. It was their fifth split in a row.
  2. The MSU freshmen continued to stand out.

In the latter case, center Matt Leitner and defenseman Zach Palmquist had big weekends. Each had a four-point series.

Leitner scored Friday’s game-winning goal and had a hand in all three goals on Saturday with a goal and two assists. It was his first four-point series and second three-point game this season.

“It feels good to score those big goals,” Leitner said on Friday.

Palmquist had a goal and an assist in each game, snapping a six-game scoreless streak.

Leitner ranks second on the team with 23 points, one behind fellow freshman Jean-Paul LaFontaine, who had a pair of assists on Friday. Leitner now has nine goals and a team-high 14 assists. Palmquist leads all MSU defensemen with six goals and nine assists.

Rookie right wing Max Gaede, who had two assists in the series, has a goal and two assists in his last four games and has six points (two goals, four assists) in 22 games.

Minnesota State’s freshman class has 28 goals and 37 assists this year.

Scoring barrage

The last time an MSU opponent scored six goals in a period, as Michigan Tech did on Saturday, was Dec. 17, 2004, in Colorado Springs, Colo., when Colorado College scored six in the first period of an 8-5 victory.

The Huskies led 6-2 after one period.

“The combination was they played good and we did not,” coach Troy Jutting said. “When you don’t play good you’re going to have some of those things happen.”

On Saturday, Mavericks goalie Phil Cook was pulled after allowing five goals on 10 shots over 13 1⁄2 minutes. Austin Lee allowed one goal on one shot over the rest of the period and finished the game with 18 saves on 20 shots.

Where they stand

Minnesota State leaves Wednesday for a series at Alaska Anchorage. The games will pit the 11th-place Mavericks against the 12th-place Seawolves.

After Anchorage’s 3-2 win over Minnesota Duluth late Saturday, MSU sits four points head of the Seawolves and three points behind 10th-place Wisconsin. All three teams have six games remaining in the regular season. The Badgers, who were swept at home Friday and Saturday by St. Cloud State, are idle this coming weekend.

The Mavericks also sit four points behind ninth-place Bemidji State, but the Beavers have two games in hand.

“We’re learning,” junior defenseman and co-captain Tyler Elbrecht said. “We just gotta keep going in the right direction with playoffs coming in four weeks and be playing our best hockey when we need to be playing our best hockey.”

New Tech

With Saturday’s win, Michigan Tech moved into a three-way tie for fifth place in the WCHA standings. The Huskies have 22 points, as do Nebraska Omaha and North Dakota. Each team has eight games remaining.

The Huskies are 10-8-2 in league play. The last time they had 10 wins in a season was 2005-06 when they finished the regular season 11-12-5.

All aboard

When Tanner Kero assisted on Bryce Reddick’s breakaway goal on in the second period on Saturday, it ensured that each of the 12 forwards in Michigan Tech’s lineup had at least one point in the game.

Five different players scored goals in the 7-3 win, and four players had two points or more.

Loose pucks

The last time MSU lost a Saturday-night game was Dec. 17 when Colorado College won 6-2 in Mankato. … Before Saturday, the last time Michigan Tech won a game in Mankato was March 8, 2008. ... Junior defenseman Evan Mosey, who scored the game’s first goal on Saturday, leads the Mavericks with a plus-5 rating.

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