After Bemidji State ran the table in the CHA Tournament and the NCAA Midwest Regional on their way to the Frozen Four last season, they lost six seniors who accounted for 38 percent of their scoring and a sophomore goaltender who turned pro early.
Fast forward to 2009-10 and the parts have changed, but the car is still purring.
A home-opening weekend sweep against Air Force was followed by a win and tie at Northern Michigan last week, and has set up the Beavers with a little momentum as they open conference action at also-off-to-a-great-start Alabama-Huntsville.
Goaltender Dan Bakela has been solid in his first collegiate action with freshman Mathieu Dugas not only winning his first game last Saturday, but picking up a shutout in the process.
“It was a great effort,” Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore said to the Bemidji Pioneer about the 5-0 Saturday win. “You look back over the course of the last 10 years since we have been Division I and you think about some of the big wins, and this ranks right up there.”
One night prior, Ben Kinne scored with 10.6 seconds remaining to help the Beavers earn a 3-3 tie.
“This is not an easy place to play,” Serratore said. “It’s tough to get one point out of Marquette let alone three. Our guys played with just a ton of jam. I’m really proud of the way our guys played.”
Over four games this season, Bemidji State has the nation’s best offensive average with 18 goals, 4.5 goals per game.
Matt Read is leading the team in scoring, but freshman Jordan George, Ryan Cramer, Chris McKelvie, Tyler Lehrke and defenseman Brad Hunt are all averaging one point per game.
“Our seniors are carrying the mail,” Serratore said. “We need our experienced players to elevate their games. Hopefully we can continue to score by committee.”
The Beavers took six of seven games last season against the Chargers including a playoff win. The one misstep was a first-game, first-series loss at Rocket Town.
FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
• The Bemidji State-UAH series this weekend is an unusual Saturday-Sunday affair with a matinee for the finale. The Beavers liked Sundays last season going 2-0-1 with wins over UMass and Cornell.
• Robert Morris hosts Quinnipiac this weekend in their regular season home-opening series. Last year in Quinnipiac, the two teams combined for 22 goals over a two game split. Good news for junior Nathan Longpre, who is still goalless over four games.
• Just like the early going last season, Alabama-Huntsville goaltender Cameron Talbot is among the top ten in Division I in save percentage at .942.
• One tie over four games does not look good on paper, but all three Niagara losses have been one-goal affairs. The first two involved watching early leads go away over the final 20 minutes but last week at Michigan reversed the trend with a pair of goals to close a three-goal gap. “Our third period has been our worst period, that’s the trend we were setting in the first three games,” Burkholder said to the Niagara Gazette. “To come out and play as well as we did in the third, we had some big-time body checks, and we outshot them.”
