APPLETON, Wis. — The Lawrence University hockey team needed this win like a man in the Sahara needs a glass of ice water.
The Vikings beat MSOE 3-2 this past Saturday to earn a critical split of a Northern Collegiate Hockey Association series with the Raiders and keep pace in the conference standings.
“Absolutely essential,” Lawrence coach Mike Szkodzinski said of the win. “We needed some good things to happen to start feeling good about ourselves again. We had played hard but hadn’t earned any bounces over the past several games. It felt good to see our players enjoy their hard work paying off. If you consider the circumstances, time of the year and the tough schedule we just endured, this was a very high-quality win, maybe one of the biggest in the past nine years.”
Lawrence, which snapped a six-game losing streak and won for the first time in 16 chances at MSOE’s Kern Center, is now 5-5-0 in the NCHA (6-10-1 overall) and is tied for fifth place with MSOE. The top four teams in the league earn home ice for the opening round of the playoffs, and Lawrence has three of the four teams ahead of it in the standings remaining on the schedule.
“The win on Saturday was huge for us,” sophomore goaltender Mattias Soderqvist said. “The passion and work ethic we showed this past weekend was really good, and definitely something for us to keep building on.
“However, we need to leave the win against MSOE behind us and refocus. We have two games coming up against a good St Scholastica team this weekend, and we need everything we have to back this past weekend’s effort up.”
Junior forward Renato Engler summed up last weekend’s win in one word, confidence.
“Last weekend’s series against MSOE was huge for our confidence because we proved to ourselves that we have the ability to beat any team in our league if we compete and play within our system,” Engler said.
Engler, who has four goals and six assists this season for 10 points, is part of a system that relies on a balanced offensive attack. The Vikings have 17 players with at least one goal and 10 with at least five points.
“The face that we do not rely on a single player to score our goals perfectly shows what our team is all about,” Engler said. “We need every single guy on the team to buy in if we want to be successful.”
The Vikings, normally a stingy defensive squad, have struggled on the blue line and are allowing 4.12 goals per game. Lawrence seemed to turn a corner after the first period of last Friday’s game. Lawrence allowed just four goals over the final 109:17 of the series.
The Vikings were also much better on the penalty kill, an area where Lawrence has stumbled, over the weekend. Lawrence killed off 11-of-13 chances for MSOE, which translates to an .846 kill percentage. Lawrence entered the series at .708 on the penalty kill.
“We are extremely focused on our overall defensive play,” Szkodzinski said. “We pride ourselves on keeping the puck out of our net, and we are not doing it as consistently as we would like to be. Strong defense is the foundation of our program. We seem to be doing a better job in the neutral zone as of late limiting odd-man rushes and keeping our opponents off-balance.”
Soderqvist was superb over the final five periods of the series with MSOE. On the season, he has a .905 save percentage and 3.77 goals against average.
“My goal every game is to give my team the opportunity to win, and I feel like I made saves at key times this weekend,” said Soderqvist, a native of Stockholm, Sweden. “I need to work on my rebounds. At least two of the goals this past weekend were scored on my rebounds, and I need to do a better job getting the shots to the corners, or to less-dangerous spots where they can’t score.”
Szkodzinski, an All-America goaltender back in his playing days, was effusive in his praise of his netminder.
“Mattias is our rock,” Szkodzinski said. “He is a highly competitive kid who works as hard as anyone on the ice. His numbers may not show it, but he has played at a very high level in virtually every game this season. It is our job to give him more help at the net front.”
The Vikings have a very young group of defensemen that includes five rookies among the regulars, and Soderqvist likes the potential of the group playing in front of him.
“At this point of the season I don’t see our young defensemen as young anymore,” Soderqvist said. “They have become key players for us and know what NCAA hockey is about now. They have been really good, but I know that they, as well as myself and the rest of the team, have more to give.”
