By Ryan Stieg
Sometimes, it can take a while for a newer hockey program to build up a solid rivalry, but in its fourth season, the St. Thomas men’s team has a good one going with Minnesota State as the two squads split their four games last season.
This weekend, it’s time for the two teams to tangle again as it’s the first round of their thome and home CCHA series with the No. 16 Mavericks. Mankato has had a good start to their season, while the Tommies have been a little up and down. That was definitely the case last weekend against Augustana as UST looked good in all areas of the ice during Friday’s shutout win, but just seemed off their game in Saturday’s loss.
“I thought Friday, we played to our standard and our identity,” Tommies head coach Rico Blasi said Monday. “I thought our guys did a lot of good things. We blocked a lot of shots. Our PK was really good. I thought our D corps did a nice job of moving the puck and getting it into our forwards’ hands, so that they could do what they needed to do. So, all in all, we were very happy with the way we played on Friday.
“Saturday, I said this after the game, I thought both teams looked real, sloppy is probably not the right word, but not as sharp as probably the first period from Friday night. I think a lot of it had to do with the penalties. There’s kind of no rhythm to the game. So, there’s guys that are probably not playing for them and guys that are not playing for us. It just kind of throws everything out of whack and I didn’t think it was a very entertaining game. Certainly not for us at the end. So, I thought we did some good things Saturday, some things we need to work on, some lessons that we learned, which hopefully, those lessons learned early will pay off in the end.”
The Tommies will need to keep those lessons in mind as they’ll face a better opponent this week with the Mavericks. Mankato has won four of its last five games and is showing right now that it’s currently the best team in the conference.
“I think they’re at the top of the nation in terms of creating scoring chances,” Blasi said. “So, they’re really good off transition and entering the zone. So, you’re gonna have to play some really good team defense and you’re going to have to track back and be aware of their forwards and their D jumping into the rush. Their goaltender (Alex Tracy) has played extremely well, they’re well-coached. So here we go, CCHA grind every weekend.”
The Mavericks have had a reputation for years of having a potent offense and that hasn’t changed this season with Minnesota transfer Rhett Pitlick leading the charge with nine points in 10 games.
“I think they’re top 20 in the analytic packages that we look at in terms of transition and creating offense,” Blasi said. “So, you’re gonna have to play some defense. You can’t give them any easy ones, but that was true for their team last year and certainly in the Hastings’ era as well. They’re as good of a team as I’ve seen in the early part of the season. So, we’ve got our hands full for sure.”
Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. Friday in Mendota Heights and 6 p.m. Saturday in Mankato.