The Bulldogs lost both matchups this weekend on the road against the Minnesota State Mavericks on Friday, Jan. 12 and Saturday, Jan. 13.
Ferris (6-16-1, 4-11 in CCHA) had lost their previous two matchups to the Mavericks (11-8-3, 7-4-1 in CCHA) earlier this season and continued that streak by losing 4-2 on Friday, and 4-0 on Saturday.
Head coach Bob Daniels addressed what he wanted to see from his team going into the tough series.
“We want to get some quick, early exits out of our zone,” Daniels said. “They’re a real handful when they’ve got the puck in your end so we can’t get bogged down in there. They’re generating a lot of scoring chances, so we need to continue to play well on the penalty kill too.”
The Bulldogs stumbled out of the gate on Friday, falling into a 2-0 deficit before freshman forward Emerson Goode scored a goal of his own early in the second period to bring the Bulldogs within striking distance. The Mavericks extended their lead back to two at the start of the third before the Bulldogs quickly combated with a goal by senior forward Jason Brancheau to make the score 3-2. The rest of the final period turned into a defensive battle before the Mavericks scored on an empty netter with less than a minute remaining to make the final score 4-2.
Brancheau, who scored his ninth goal of the season on Friday, believes special teams miscues got in the team’s way of winning on Friday.
“We played well enough to win,” Brancheau said. “It came down to our special teams giving up two goals while we were on the power play and another on the penalty kill.”
In the loss, senior goaltender Logan Stein stopped 29-of-32 shots. One of Stein’s saves was featured as sixth on SportsCenter’s top ten plays as he had a swift backdoor save late in the second period.
Stein broke down the play while believing the SportsCenter highlight would be something he won’t forget.
“It bounced back to their guy on the back door and I kinda just made a reactionary save,” Stein said. “It’s something I’ll tell my kids about when I’m older. I’ll be bragging about it to them.”
On Saturday, the Bulldogs didn’t fare any better than the previous night. The Mavericks jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first period, and Ferris couldn’t get anything going offensively. Minnesota State added another goal midway through the second period and the score remained through the third period as the Bulldogs fell 4-0.
“Obviously, we want to win more. We played well on Friday, but we did not play well on Saturday,” Daniels said. “Saturday was just not a good game for us. We kind of hung on to walk out of there 4-0. We just didn’t have our legs. I’m still encouraged with this team, I’ve seen some really good things.”
The Bulldogs will return home on Friday, Jan. 19 for a contest against the Lake Superior State Lakers before going on the road to play the Lakers on Saturday, Jan. 20. Puck drop is set for 7:07 p.m. on Friday, and 6:07 p.m. on Saturday.