The ceremony went on as scheduled Saturday night at Anderson Arena, with St. Thomas’ men’s hockey team honoring its nine seniors on the ice postgame.
What wasn’t part of the plan was for it to be done amid such a somber atmosphere.
The Tommies entered the weekend looking to take a stranglehold on the CCHA regular season title. Instead, they followed up a shootout loss to Augustana with a 4-0 loss on Saturday, which cost them a share of first place.
“We’ve got to right the ship,” Tommies coach Rico Blasi said. “We’ve got to get back to work. Maybe we didn’t work hard enough in practice last week. That’s on me.”
By taking five of a possible six points over the weekend, the Vikings take over first place in the CCHA, two points ahead of the Tommies and Michigan Tech. Minnesota State is four points back.
Augustana has completed its regular season, while the other three teams will finish up with a pair of games next weekend. The Tommies play at Bemidji State.
Asked about his team’s performance on Saturday, Blasi said, “I didn’t mind our game.”
Missing, however, was a spark that could have changed the outcome.
The Vikings led 1-0 midway through the third period before scoring twice in just over two minutes and capping things off with an empty-net goal. The second goal was a back-breaker,
with the Tommies turning the puck over at their own blue line and surrendering a breakaway goal.
The Tommies have had the most prolific offense in the conference this season, but the Vikings kept the clamps on them for most of the night.
“They played hard, they blocked shots,” Blasi said. “(Josh) Kotai is a premier goalie in the conference and probably in the country. I thought in the second period we had 15 scoring
chances. We didn’t get real good looks, we didn’t get a lot of second opportunities, so they did a really good job of that.”
The Tommies were 0-for-4 on the power play while working without one of its point men in Nick Williams, who was injured on Friday night.
“You’ve got to score on the power play,” Blasi said. “We weren’t clean on the power play. Willie being hurt and not being out there, that hurts us. Now we have to be comfortable with Willie not being around. That’s a big loss for our team.”
The Tommies are 1-3-1 in their last five games after having their 11-game winning streak snapped. The streak was snapped in a 4-3 loss at Michigan Tech. The Tommies then split a
series at Bowling Green.
Blasi said the results are not due to a dip in the team’s game down the stretch.
“The Tech series was pretty good, it could have gone either way both night’s,” he said. “I thought we played really well. We go up to Bowling Green, we win Friday, we played decent Saturday. It wasn’t a bad game, we just didn’t get the result. I thought we played pretty good (Friday) night until the end. Tonight was a 1-0 game until the turnover.”
Blasi said his team learned a hard lesson over the weekend.
“A this time of year you’ve got to play a little bit desperate,” he said. “You have to have a little controlled urgency, controlled desperation. Our guys know that, but I think now it’s sinking in a little bit. You saw a team in Augustana — this was their last two games and they were desperate and they played that way. We have to match that going forward.”
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