Future Mavs in HS Tournament

Two future Mavericks faced off in their respective sectional semifinals tonight, and each had a different result.

Mike Louwerse, of The Blake School, had a goal and 2 assists to help Blake to a dramatic 8-6 win over Spring Lake Park. The Bears, who are seeded third in their section, got a bit of a break when second seed Breck was upset by St. Louis Park. Totino-Grace upset top seed Mahtomedi tonight, meaning Blake will face T-G for the opportunity to return back to the XCel Center for the second straight year.

Adam Mueller, of Roseville, didn't fair as well. His top seeded Roseville team lost to fourth seeded White Bear Lake, 4-0. It's a bit of an upset, but the Bears had already defeated Roseville earlier this season.

The Waiting Game

Since the Mavericks don't have to worry about games next weekend, we can sit around and watch the rest of the WCHA. Here's how the playoff scenario is shaping up.

The Mavericks currently sit tied for 6th place with Michigan Tech, with Wisconsin one point behind them. The Mavericks would win a tiebreaker with Michigan Tech, lose a tiebreaker with Wisconsin, and would finish second behind Michigan Tech if all three teams tied.

Michigan Tech plays at Minnesota, and Wisconsin plays at Minnesota-Duluth. If both teams get swept, the Mavericks finish in 6th. If one of those teams gets a point, the Mavericks finish 7th. If both teams get a point, the Mavericks will finish 8th.

The question of who the Mavericks will play is even more complicated. They could play at North Dakota, Denver, Wisconsin, Colorado College, or Michigan Tech.

If all four series end in a split next weekend, the Mavericks finish 8th, and play at Denver. If the higher-seeded team swept every series, the Mavs would be in 7th and would play at Denver.

Saying Goodbye to the Seniors

Five seniors will be playing their last games in a Maverick uniform at the Midwest Wireless Center this weekend. They've given a lot of time and effort, and made great sacrifices to provide us with entertainment over the past four years, and they deserve a fitting send-off. Here's a small tribute to each of them.

Lucas Fransen

Fransen is the 8th oldest player in college hockey this season. Perhaps the highlight of his career came in his freshman season, when Minnesota State faced Minnesota-Duluth in the WCHA playoffs. Fransen scored in overtime on Friday to win the first game for the Mavericks. After losing the second game of the series, he almost helped pull off the upset, scoring a goal on Sunday, before the Mavericks fell 6-5.

After his freshman season, Fransen saw his ice time decline, but he was always ready to fill in when the team needed him. When the Mavericks were hurt by injuries last season, he moved up to forward, where he picked up an assist in Minnesota State's Friday night victory over St. Cloud. This season, he's proven to be a capable 7th defenseman for the team, that is capable of helping out on the penalty kill. His personal best game this year was against Minnesota-Duluth, when he had a goal, and assist, and convincingly won a fight over a Bulldog.

Kurtis Kisio

Kurtis Kisio came to Minnesota State with a lot of expectations, and a hefty legacy to carry with an NHL father. He never developed into the first-line player that some hoped he would, but he was always a solid contributor to the team.

Kisio's best weekend as a Maverick also came in Duluth. Last season, he registered two assists on Friday night, and two goals an assist on Saturday to help the Mavericks sweep the Bulldogs. His scoring may have dropped a bit this year, as he has spent most of the season on the fourth line, but he has worked hard and contributed in other ways.

What Kisio may be best remembered for at MSU is the rivalry with his brother Brent, who played for Nebraska-Omaha. In four years, Kisio played in all 8 games against Omaha, and the Minnesota State never lost to Omaha. The Mavericks won the Spirit of the Maverick trophy all four years, which I still contend should be renamed the Kisio Cup.

Chad Brownlee

Chad Brownlee was the ultimate defensive defenseman in his career at MSU. He's the type of player that you never really notice while he's on the ice, but if he's not playing, you definitely notice his absence. A big part of Minnesota State's struggles at the beginning of last season was that Brownlee was out due to injury.

Brownlee was also a solid leader. He was an alternate captain last season, before becoming a co-captain this season, and deserves a lot of credit for the growth of this year's young team. Perhaps his biggest impact as been on freshman Nick Canzanello. Brownlee has been paired with the young defenseman for the majority of the season, and has lessened some of the Canzanello's growing pains by providing a reliable safety net.

Brownlee's contributions were felt off the ice as well. He was nominated for the Hockey Humanitarian Award for writing and producing a CD to honor Anthony Ford which raised over $3000 for future Mankato hockey players. He also volunteered in the Mankato Area Hockey Association.

Chris Clark

Clark was never a superstar on the ice, but he will always be remembered as one of the most popular Mavericks and a true fan favorite.

Clark was the consummate team player. When the Mavericks were struggling to find a starting goalie in the 04-05 season, Clark stepped up and took the starting role. The following year, when two talented freshmen joined the team, Clark moved back to the back-up role with grace. Most players would have distanced themselves from the team after a demotion like that, but Clark stuck with the team and always had a smile on his face.

Clark's personal career highlight was more than likely his first collegiate game. He entered a game against Denver midway through the game, with the Mavericks trailing 7-1. Clark made 13 saves as the Mavericks scored 7 straight goals to win the the game 8-7.

The other thing Clark will be remembered for is his close personal friendship with Anthony Ford. Clark wore the number 28 this season to honor Anthony's birthday, and has a picture of himself and Anthony painted on his helmet.

Clark will start Saturday night's game, but probably won't play much. He's the type of guy that you always want on your team. Hopefully someday he will go into coaching, because it is always good for the game of hockey to have guys like that around.

Travis Morin

Really, what else can you say?

Morin was one of the most under-appreciated players in college hockey prior to this season. He had the opportunity to go pro this summer, but instead chose to come back to Minnesota State, where he finally got the recognition he deserved and cemented his legacy as one of the greatest Mavericks of all-time.

Personally, Morin is one of my all-time favorite college hockey players to watch because he is one of the most complete hockey players I've ever seen. He's done it all for the Mavericks this season. He's led the team in scoring. He's the team's best defensive forward. He takes all the most important face-offs. He quarterbacks the powerplay. He is out on the ice any time he can stand upright on the penalty kill. He played a couple shifts at defense while the Mavericks were down to three defenseman against Duluth. He even served as unofficial back-up goalie twice, when Mike Zacharias and Dan Tormey were forced to leave games early.

His contributions haven't been tangible enough to merit serious consideration for the Hobey Baker award, but after watching him game in and game out this season, there is no doubt in my mind that there is not a player who is more valuable to his team than Morin. He is more than likely the biggest difference between the Mavericks fighting for 7th place in the WCHA, and finishing in last place by a wide margin.

Hopefully his contributions were noticed by enough people that he will earn a nomination to the All-America team. It would be nice to see his banner hanging at the Midwest Wireless Center along with the other great Mavericks where he belongs.

Overall, this group isn't defined by gaudy individual statistics, and championships won. But that doesn't mean that this group lacked value to this program. This season had the opportunity to be a disaster, especially if some of the older players saw that there wasn't much future and quit on the team. This group didn't do that. This group kept working, kept building, and did whatever they could to make this team, and this program better. This year was certainly not where many people want this team to be, but the good news is that the future looks incredibly bright, and this group of seniors deserves a lot of credit for that. As they pass the torch on to the younger generation of Maverick hockey players, they also pass along the responsibility to keep working, and to get Minnesota State hockey to the place that it deserves to be.

...Ladies?

There's still one hockey team on campus with a shot at earning home ice in the WCHA playoffs. The Minnesota State women's team pulled off a dramatic sweep of St. Cloud State at home last weekend on senior weekend to pull into a tie with Ohio State for the 4th spot in the WCHA.

The Mavericks lost a two-goal third period lead in the first game of the series in St. Cloud, but scored with less than a minute left in overtime to win the game. They shutdown the Huskies offense on Saturday to get a 2-0.

The women play Ohio State this weekend, which is the last weekend of the regular season, at the Sell-Your-Soul Center in Columbus. The winner of this series will gain the final home ice playoff spot. Ohio State comes into the weekend with a slight advantage, in that they swept Minnesota State earlier this season at All Seasons Arena, meaning a split this weekend would give the tiebreaker to Ohio State.

Regardless of this weekend, the Mavericks can finish no worse than 5th in the conference. Theoretically, Bemidji State is only four points behind MSU could catch them this weekend, but BSU travels to Madison this weekend to face a Wisconsin team that has only lost once all season, and has only allowed 34 goals all season(Four Wisconsin players have more points than that). Even if the impossible happened, MSU would still hold the tiebreaker over BSU.

As far as the NCAA tournament goes, MSU currently sits at 13th in the Women's PWR(for all of the PWR's flawed math, the Women's PWR is actually currently the same at the RPI. Go figure.). Since only eight teams get into the women's tourney, they probably need to win the WCHA tournament to have any hope of making the NCAA tournament.

So the mission for the Mavericks this weekend is simple. Win both games, or get a win and a tie, and they'll host Ohio State in the WCHA playoffs. Lose a game and they're forced to play in Columbus in the first round of the playoffs. In fact, if I were coach Jeff Vizenor, I'd threaten the team by saying that if they lose a game, the team will do things Alaska-style and just spend the week in Columbus instead of flying back home. Lord knows the prospect of spending a week in that hellhole would motivate me to play harder.

Meet the New Guys

Minnesota State got verbal commitments from two new defenseman this week. Both are currently playing along the blueline for the Green Bay Gamblers, along with another MSU recruit, Channing Boe.

The first is Kurt Davis from Plymouth, Minnesota. Davis is relatively small for a defenseman. He's listed at 5'7" 175 lbs. His style of play is that of an offensive defenseman, but he is also a solid defender. At this fall's Buc Bowl, US Hockey Report said he "battled and played hard on both sides of the puck".

Davis played his high school hockey for Wayzata High School where he played on the blueline along with Minnesota recruit Kevin Wehrs and Ohio State football star James Laurinaitis. He registered 30 assists in his senior season and was considered one of the best playmakers in the Classic Lake Conference.

After graduating from Wayzata, he went to Waterloo of the USHL. He played just five regular season games with the Blackhawks before being sent to Green Bay, where he played 36 games. He spent most of the season paired with big Eric Gryba, who is currently playing at Boston University. He finished the '05-06 season with 8 points in 41 games, and an impressive +8 rating.

In this, his final season of junior hockey, Davis has become more of an offensive threat. In 35 games so far this season, he has 4 goals and 18 assists, making his 5th on the team in scoring, and second among defenseman. he is a -1 on the year, but only one Green Bay defenseman has a positive +/- rating.

Davis looks to be filling the spot left by Mitch Carlson. He seems to play a very similar style to Carlson. The complexion of MSU's defense could look very different from what Maverick fans are used to next season, with three smaller, fast defenseman in the lineup with Nick Canzanello, Davis, and Ben Youds.

The other commitment Minnesota State picked up was from Baylor Dieter. Dieter will join the Mavericks in 2008, and will likely take R.J. Linder's spot in the lineup. He plays a similar style to Linder in that he is also a big, physical defenseman.

Dieter was a high school teammate of Minnesota State recruit Austin Lee at Bloomington Jefferson High School prior to this season. After playing for Jefferson, he was drafted in the 6th round of the USHL draft by the Gamblers. He has one goal and six assists on the season after 31 games played, and is a -6.

After not being selected in last year's NHL draft, Dieter looks like he may be picked this time around. NHL's Central Scouting ranked him 125th among North American skaters their annual Mid-Term draft rankings.

So You're Saying There's a Chance?

Minnesota's win on Friday mathematically eliminated Minnesota State from MacNaughton Cup contention. But there's still hope for the Mavericks to make a run at possibly sneaking into that 5th playoff spot.

So what needs to happen and who should MSU fans be cheering for this weekend?

Minnesota State at North Dakota: WIN! Any points the Mavericks can get will be absolutely huge this weekend. There were a dozen different places the Mavs could have picked up the one extra point they needed to finish in 6th place last season, and the REA was one of them. If MSU had swept that series last season, they would have been the ones hosting UND instead of the other way around. It won't be easy, but even getting a split would really help keep the rest of the pack behind us.

Denver at Michigan Tech: Go Denver. Tech has an advantage in that they're playing at home and it's Winter Carnival, meaning they'll probably play their best games of the season, but Denver is the better team and is fighting for second place in the WCHA. If DU can sweep, any points the Mavs get will be ground gained on the Huskies.

Anchorage at Wisconsin: Meh. Somebody has to get some points this weekend, and it doesn't really help MSU regardless of who gets them. It's probably better off that Anchorage wins for three reasons. 1)They're farther away from the Mavs in the standings 2)Wisconsin has games in hand on us, so it'd be nice to seperate ourselves 3)The Mavs play Anchorage next weekend, so we'd still have more control over our own destiny.

Colorado College at St. Cloud: This one doesn't really matter too much. On one hand, Colorado College has a very tough schedule the rest of the way(the top three teams in the league, plus us), and they're still catchable if they struggle and we play great hockey. On the other hand, if there is a decisive loser in this series, that team will likely finish in 4th place, while the Mavericks could quite possibly finish in 7th. Certainly the Mavericks' record in St. Cloud is much better than at Colorado College.

Oh yeah, did I mention that MSU needs to WIN this weekend?