OXFORD, Ohio — Miami allowed just 19 shots on goal Friday, its second-best performance in that category this season.
Unfortunately for the RedHawks, five of those attempts found their mark as No. 16 St. Cloud State topped MU, 5-2 at Cady Arena.
Miami (7-18-2) has dropped seven straight and fell to 1-15-2 in the NCHC and was mathematically eliminated from any of the four first-round home-ice slots in next month’s league tournament.
The series will wrap up at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday.
RECAP: St. Cloud State (13-9-5) jumped ahead with 4:22 left in the first period on a one-time blast from the inside edge of the left faceoff circle by Jack Peart off a behind-the-net feed by Nick Portz.
Less than two minutes later, the Huskies extended their lead to two on the power play when Peart sent a pass from the point to a wide-open Zach Okabe at the base of the right faceoff circle, and he juked once and whipped the puck past Miami goalie Bruno Bruveris high near post.
The RedHawks trimmed the deficit to one 2:23 into the middle frame on a man-advantage rush as Matthew Barbolini carried it into the zone and fed Raimonds Vitolins, who cupped the puck and fired it top shelf from the high slot.
SCSU’s Dylan Anhorn made it 3-1 with 6:42 left in the second stanza on a one-time blast from the slot off a feed by Veeti Miettinen.
Miami again cut its disadvantage to one 13 seconds into the third period. P.J. Fletcher carried the puck into the offensive zone and put a shot on net from the left faceoff circle that was denied by goalie Dominic Basse, and John Waldron buried the rebound, which was kicked out into the slot.
But 3:14 later, the Huskies’ Barrett Hall spun around in the high slot and batted a backhander that ramped off Bruveris’ equipment and into the net to make it 4-2.
St. Cloud State essentially sealed the game 50 seconds later when Cooper Wylie roofed one from the right goal line off a left-wing feed through the top of the crease by Tynan Ewart.
STATS: Waldron led Miami in points, going 1-1-2 for his third multi-point game of the season and his first since Oct. 27 vs. Arizona State.
The sophomore now has six career games with at least two points, with three coming against St. Cloud State.
His current three-game points streak (2-2-4) is the longest on the team.
In his first game back since missing the last five due to injury, Vitolins found the net for the first time since Nov. 24. It was his fifth marker of the season and his first in NCHC play.
Barbolini — also back from an LBI that cost him the last five games — earned an assist, as did Fletcher, who leads Barbolini by one for the team lead in points, 23-22.
Fletcher has assists in back-to-back games and points in five of six. He is sixth in the NCHC with nine goals in league play and has 15 NCHC points, seven more than any other RedHawk.
Defenseman Rihards Simanovics picked up his third career point and his second in three games.
— Special teams bust: Miami drew just one power play. Special teams boom: The RedHawks needed just 57 seconds to score on that lone man-advantage, picking up a PPG for the second straight game.
— This was the second time this season Miami held an opponent to fewer than 20 shots, as the RedHawks surrendered just 18 in a 4-1 win over Canisius on Oct. 14.
MU had not lost a game in which it held to a team under 20 shots since Feb. 3, 2018 when the Western Michigan beat the RedHawks, 3-2 despite being outshot, 28-16.
The last time Miami gave up five goals and fewer than 20 shots in a game? That was Oct. 24, 2014 when the RedHawks lost, 5-4 to St. Lawrence despite an SOG edge of 42-16.
— Unfortunately for Miami, it will play its first-round NCHC Tournament series on the road for the eighth straight season (it would’ve been nine but COVID wiped out the 2020 playoffs).
In the eight-team NCHC, the top four teams host opening-round best-of-3 series.
The RedHawks have earned just six league points with seven games remaining, so with three points available each night, they can max out at 27 points. Colorado College is currently sitting in fourth place with 27 points, and Denver is fifth with 26.
Those teams face each other the in a home-and-home series to wrap up the regular season, and with six points on the line that weekend, at least one will reach that 28-point threshold.
ANALYSIS: Stats are great tools for explaining why teams win and lose games.
But sometimes key performance-indicating metrics can miss wildly in all sports.
A pitcher can hold a team to six baserunners in six innings, but if he gives a grand slam and a two-run homer, he’s charged with six runs and is probably taking an ‘L’.
A quarterback can throw for 400 yards, but if he throws four interceptions and loses a fumble his team is likely doomed.
Because of puck luck, the hot-and-cold nature of goalies, etc., hockey can be harder to dissect through statistics than most sports.
Back to the original point: It’s unusual to say a team didn’t play great defensively when holding an opponent — and a ranked one at that — to 19 shots on goal. But not bizarre.
Like the defensive back that intercepts a pass but is burned twice for touchdowns on fly patterns or the right fielder that hits two solo homers but drops a fly ball allowing three runs to score, critical bad plays can overshadow the good.
In Friday’s case, defensive assignments were inexplicably blown and St. Cloud State skaters were left wide open several times, and as one of the best teams in college hockey, the Huskies didn’t miss on their opportunities.
And after Miami had pulled within one on the first shift of the third period, 3-2, Bruveris let in a critical fourth goal in that he certainly would’ve liked back, and four-plus minutes after Waldron’s goal, the lead went from one to three following a goal on a delayed penalty, sealing the St. Cloud State win.
Teams in this league are too good and will exploit egregious misplays more times than not.
— This was a scoreless game for nearly 16 minutes, one-goal game for half of the second period and again for several minutes of the third, but it didn’t feel that close.
The fourth goal was devastating, and the fifth soon followed.
Despite Miami’s early edge in shots, St. Cloud State largely controlled play in the first period and at no time did it never felt like there was a realistic chance Miami would emerge with three points.
— It’s crazy to think former team manager Brendan Burke passed away over 14 years ago. Miami honored his legacy prior to this game.
LINEUP CHANGES: Miami returned to a more-traditional 12-forward, seven-defensemen lineup, adding Barbolini and Vitolins up front. Both first liners had missed five games due to injury.
They took the place of forward Brayden Morrison and defenseman Spencer Cox.
Morrison had dressed for 20 straight games, and Cox had played in five straight.
It was the fifth time this season the RedHawks played without Cox.
Simanovics and Hampus Rydqvist apparently had their names pulled out of the defenseman lineup hat first prior to the game, as they comprised the top pairing.
STANDINGS: Miami, last in the NCHC, remains 14 points clear of the field with seven regular season games remaining.
Just to climb out of the cellar, the RedHawks would need to finish at least 4-2-1 and have Minn.-Duluth (20 points) or Omaha (21 points) fall off a cliff.
Miami has dropped to No. 47 in PairWise, and based on their brutal upcoming schedule, it’s unlikely they can drop much further.
GRADES
FORWARDS: C-. Two very nice goals with an underrated set-up by Barbolini on the first one, but only 13 shots on goals total for this corps. Barbolini also dished out three huge hits. No one else stood out, but despite being on the ice for a goal, the fourth line of Tanyon Bajzer, Blake Mesenburg and Teddy Lagerback generated a lot of energy.
DEFENSEMEN: C-. Simanovics earned an assist and the D-men helped hold St. Cloud State to 19 shots, but we saw way too many turnovers, failed clearing attempts and blown defensive assignments from the corps. Rydqvist was way out of position on one goal and struggled overall, and it looked like Zane Demsey lost his man on the second goal and it ended up in Miami’s net.
GOALTENDING: D. Yes, that fifth goal went across the crease and was pretty much unstoppable, but Bruveris should’ve had one of the first three shots, which were Grade-As but not unstoppable. The fourth one he definitely should have stopped. The freshman’s athleticism and reaction time seem superb, but he’s very unorthodox and his positioning is a work in progress, especially as a 6-footer in the NCAA’s elite hockey conference.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Both of last weekend’s games were allegedly sellouts or close to it, with a raucous student section and enthusiastic season ticket base trying to fend off a loud and ample North Dakota fanbase with numbers in the 500 range that ravaged the lower bowl and the beer booths.
And the energy by Miami on the ice matched that in the stands, allowing long-time attendees to reminisce about the good old days of meaningful RedHawks hockey games in February.
We saw neither a loud fanbase nor an overly-electric effort by the home team on Friday.
That’s disappointing considering the closed-door players-only meeting the RedHawks held two weeks ago and the vigor the team had played with in the games immediately following.
The bottom line is: Statistical anomalies or not, St. Cloud State deserved to win this game.
For the sake of argument, if we call the teams’ efforts a wash, the Huskies were allotted more quality opportunities through hard work and Miami miscues and didn’t miss their high-percentage chances.
Following Miami’s one-point effort vs. North Dakota last weekend, climbing out of last place was going to be a tall order anyway.
And three games into a four-game homestand in which the RedHawks have picked up just one league point, it has gotten much harder.
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