The best defense is a good offense.

For the Miami RedHawks, the old adage has rung true throughout this season, but not in its most classical hockey sense. Looking solely at the team’s offensive numbers, it would seem hard to believe that last year’s national runners-up are unanimously No. 1 across various power rankings, polls, and standings.

Scoring 3.07 goals per game, Miami sits 27th nationally, putting it almost halfway back through the pack of 58 teams. And you’ll have to scroll down your computer screen to find the RedHawks’ leading scorer Tommy Wingels, whose 13-16—29 line puts him 59th in the national scoring race.

Miami goalie Cody Reichard's staggering statistics are partly the result of the RedHawks' commitment to defense.

But where the goal scoring leaves something to be desired, the team’s diligent puck control and improved transition game stifles opponents on a nightly basis, enhancing a stellar defensive corps and excellent goaltending tandem that leads the nation with just 1.64 goals against per contest, and an incredible 1.15 goals per CCHA conference game.

“To be honest, it’s probably the forwards,” assistant coach Brent Brekke said when asked what the catalyst for the incredible defensive output has been. “There isn’t anyone with big numbers, but it’s the puck possession (that is the key). The depth of our forwards is pretty strong.”

Wingels, the team’s leading scorer, is a prime example of this puck control and two-way philosophy. While his aforementioned 29 points are respectable, a more impressive stat is his number of blocked shots. The junior from Wilmette, Ill. sits second on the team with 25 blocks, and will take the tradeoff between discomfort and a marked advantage for his team.

“It might hurt at times,” Wingels said. “But it’s a big momentum swing for our team.”

Despite his selflessness with respect to his team’s cause, Wingels is no stranger to the spotlight. During last year’s run to the NCAA championship game, Wingels compiled a 3-3—6 line in four games, including two goals in the semifinal and the third during the championship game.

While the personal success was no doubt something he was smiling about at the time, the crushing disappointment of not coming home with the ultimate prize reaffirmed his commitment to playing two-way hockey.

“If you win a game 2-0 or if you win 5-1, it’s a win,” Wingels said. “We’ll take a win and we’ll take any kind of goal. We know we’re pretty stingy defensively, so we have to make things difficult for the other team. We have to play with passion and focus on making thing tough for their goalie.”

Though the forwards deserve their plaudits for playing an all-around game and have tight tolerances in their own zone, it’s important to note that the defensemen have continued to mature as individuals and as a unit throughout this season.

Given that the defensive corps is so stacked with young talent—the group consists of one senior, two juniors, four sophomores, and two freshmen—one area that Brekke suggested his team still has to improve upon is communicating in their own zone and communicating with goaltenders Cody Reichard and Connor Knapp.

Junior Vincent LoVerde—a blueliner who leads the team with 53 blocked shots—agreed that communication is an area in which the RedHawks need to continue to improve.

“We were young last year, and I think we’re doing a better job communicating,” LoVerde said. “I think we have two very solid goaltenders that do a good job of stopping pucks, and over the summer, the goaltenders worked on playing the puck and communicating, and we’ve worked on that with them since the beginning of the year.”

As the communication continues to improve, it’s hard to imagine Miami giving up even fewer goals to conference opponents. Reichard and Knapp currently own the top two goals against averages in the country, respectively, while Reichard also has the best save percentage in Division I hockey.

The two have certainly been the beneficiaries of such strong play in front of them, rarely having to steal games, but facing less than 23 shots per game presents its own challenges with respect to maintaining the focus necessary to manage such impressive goals against records.

Riding Reichard and Knapp’s steady hands in net with the assistance of gritty team defense, the RedHawks are heading into this weekend with an outside chance to clinch the top seed in the CCHA tournament on Saturday night. If Miami manages a sweep of Lake Superior State in Oxford, Alaska wins at least one of two home games against Michigan State, and Ferris State falls twice at Northern Michigan, the RedHawks will have eliminated all but Ferris State from contention for the top spot by virtue of points, and knocked off the Bulldogs by virtue of having the tiebreaker after going 2-0-2 against the upstarts from Big Rapids this season.

While the chance to reach an important checkpoint in their quest to finish what they began last year is surely somewhere in Miami’s collective brains, the RedHawks are intensely focused on taking things one game at a time. And if they focus on each game and don’t let the pressure build on them, is there anything that can stop the RedHawks?

Or, perhaps more to the point, is there anyone who can crack perhaps the most airtight team defense that the CCHA has ever seen?