Listed as the 13th forward on Miami’s line chart, John Emmons had only scored once in nearly two seasons prior to last Saturday.
He not only found the net for the second straight game, he recorded the eventual game winner in the RedHawks’ 2-1 win at St. Cloud State on Friday.
The last time Miami had beaten St. Cloud State on the Huskies’ home ice in regulation was in the NCHC Tournament on March 15, 2014. The RedHawks hadn’t taken SCSU down in regulation during the regular season since the same campaign: Nov. 6, 2013.
The teams wrap up their weekend and regular season series at 7:07 p.m. on Saturday.
RECAP: Following a scoreless first period, Miami took the lead at the 6:03 mark of the middle frame when Ethan Hay took a Casper Nassen feed from behind the net and ripped a one-timer from the top of the left faceoff circle that hit a St. Cloud State skate wide of the net and caromed in.
The Huskies tied it 1:53 later on a high-slot wrister by Cooper Wylie that snuck through Miami goalie Matteo Drobac.
But 2:24 after the Huskies’ equalizer, Miami regained the lead as Vladislav Lukashevich won a 50-50 puck at his own blue line and flicked a stretch pass through the neutral zone to a streaking Emmons, who corralled it at the blue line, skated in and roofed it on his forehand with a defender shadowing him for the eventual game winner.
STATS: Emmons, playing in just his fifth game since October and dressing for only the ninth time this season, scored for the second straight game, giving him three career goals.
And it was his first game winner.
Hay scored his third goal of the season and his first since Nov. 21 against this same St. Cloud State team. He has three points in his last two games and he’s tied for fourth on the team with 11 assists.
Unofficially, Hay also leads the planet by being kicked out of the faceoff circle 982 times this season.
Nassen picked up an assist and also has three points in two games and 12 in his last 16. He’s tied for fourth on the team with 17 points.
Doug Grimes added a helper as well, giving him 15 on the season. He had four points in his two seasons at Boston University.
On defense, Lukashevich earned a primary helper for his feed on the Emmons goal, his 18th point of the season, third-most on the team and tops among blueliners.
Speaking of defensemen, Michael Phelan also notched a helper, giving him points in three straight games and recorded just two in the first 22 contests.
So the co-owners of the team’s longest current points streak are Grimes and Phelan at three games apiece.
— With 14 wins, Drobac is one away from tying for 10th on Miami’s all-time single-season wins leaderboard.
Drobac stopped 25 of 26 shots (.962), the same .962 save percentage he has posted in the five games since Mathis Langevin’s only non-Drobac goalie start this season.
15 wins ties Miami’s high-water mark since 2015-16.
— Miami won its third consecutive NCHC game, the first time the RedHawks have accomplished that since they recorded four straight league wins Dec. 10, 2016-Jan. 13, 2017 against Colorado College (one game), SCSU (two games) and North Dakota (one game).
— MU was 0-for-3 on the power play, failing to score on the man-advantage for the fourth time in five games. The RedHawks also allowed a PPG on three chances, the first time in seven contests they have given up a power play goal. They were 14 of 14 on the PK their previous six outings.
ANALYSIS: In the first period, Miami led in time of possession and shots on goal, but St. Cloud State generated better scoring chances.
The second period was wild, with tons of scoring chances both ways, but the RedHawks capitalized on two of theirs and the Huskies just one.
The RedHawks played hard-nosed, shut-down D the third period, led by Drobac but assisted by pretty much all 19 skaters.
St. Cloud State pulled its goalie with just over three minutes remaining, and the Huskies fired a myriad of shots at Drobac, as the puck was in the Miami zone for almost the entirety of that 6-on-5.
The RedHawks scored a gorgeous goal, with Lukashevich feeding Emmons and Emmons doing Emmons things by outworking everyone on the ice and scoring with a defender covering him so tightly he could tell what Emmons ate for lunch.
Miami also got lucky on the Hay goal, which ricocheted off a SCSU defenseman wide of the net. And the Huskies hit two posts and missed two A-plus chances, one of which was robbed by Drobac.
So it was a great win. The first in a while in St. Cloud. An extremely well-played game overall by Miami.
But the RedHawks also got puck luck, something they haven’t seen a lot of recently, and they’ll need to match St. Cloud’s intensity on Saturday if they hope to leave the campus with more than three points.
— Drobac was outstanding, as has been the case almost every game recently. The one goal he allowed was on an outside shot he was deep in his net for an probably would have liked back, but he stopped a ton of Grade-A chances and controlled his rebounds very well.
— Bradley Walker wins Most Underrated Player of the Game, as he blocked several shots, laid out a pair of high-profile hits and was relentless on the penalty kill. He seems to improve every weekend.
— Three times St. Cloud State knocked its own net off its moorings and was never assessed a penalty.
— The power play wasn’t particularly impressive, finishing 0 of 3 and not really generating any scoring chances until very late.
–This also wasn’t the best game by Ilia Morozov, who seemed to fall in love with his puck-carrying ability and was stripped for a scoring chance and turned the puck over a couple other times.
— The last time Miami beat St. Cloud State in this building was March 15, 2014, when the eighth-seeded RedHawks upset the Huskies in a best-of-3, first-round NCHC Tournament series after winning the opener a night earlier.
Justin Greenberg scored the series-clinching goal in the closing seconds, sending MU to the Frozen Faceoff, where the RedHawks advanced to the final.
LINEUP CHANGES: Just one: Matteo Giampa was back in the lineup after missing four games due to injury.
Miami went with 13 forwards for the second straight game, with Giampa replacing Justin Stupka up front.
It’s only the second game Stupka has not dressed this season.
STANDINGS: Miami is now tied with Arizona State for sixth in the NCHC with 19 points. St. Cloud State has 20 points. So the RedHawks could overtake the Huskies for fifth with a regulation win.
MU improved from 25th to No. 22 in the NPI.
FINAL THOUGHTS: St. Cloud missed a couple of scoring chances it typically doesn’t miss, and one of Miami’s whopping two goals hit a Huskies defenseman in the skate and went in.
It wasn’t a perfect game by Miami by any stretch. But the RedHawks were the better team overall and deserved the three points.
Amazingly, MU actually now has a shot at home-ice advantage for the first round of the NCHC Tournament and is included in the argument for an at-large bid to the NCAAs. If the RedHawks continue to play with this level of intensity, good things may come to them a lot sooner than expected.
Miami is truly college hockey’s biggest comeback story of 2025-26.
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