APPLETON, Wis. — Lawrence University’s Mattias Soderqvist was simply spectacular last weekend and earned the Northern Collegiate Hockey Association Defensive Player of the Week award.
Soderqvist (Stockholm, Sweden), a junior goaltender, picked up the honor after earning a win and a tie in a critical NCHA series with MSOE. Soderqvist posted a .968 save percentage and 1.44 goals against average for the two games.
In last Friday’s 2-2 overtime tie at MSOE, Soderqvist stopped a season-high 44 shots. He followed that with another season high, this time making 46 saves, in a 2-1 victory over the Raiders at the Appleton Family Ice Center on Saturday.
The Vikings picked up three points and closed to within one point of MSOE for the third and final playoff spot from the NCHA North Division with four games left in the regular season.
Soderqvist improved to 7-9-2 on the season with an .894 save percentage and 3.79 goals against average. This is the second time in less than a month that Soderqvist has won Defensive Player of the Week and the fourth time in his career.
The Vikings head to Northland College this weekend for a pair of league games before finishing up the regular season with a home-and-home series with Lake Forest College on Feb. 19-20.