NORTHFIELD, Minn. – In its first playoff game since 2014, the seventh-seeded St. Olaf College men's hockey team heads on the road to take on second-seeded Concordia-Moorhead in the quarterfinals of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Playoffs on Saturday afternoon.
St. Olaf (8-14-3, 5-8-1 MIAC) got the No. 7 seed in the nine-team, all-comers tournament after posting its highest MIAC win total since 2017-18 during the regular season and will visit No. 2 seed Concordia-Moorhead (13-9-3, 10-4-2 MIAC). Puck drop is slated for 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26 at Moorhead Sports Center.
Fans are permitted to attend the game but must be properly masked per MIAC policy. Ticket prices are $8 for adults and $2 for students. MIAC passes will be honored but no other passes will be accepted. Fans unable to attend the game in-person can follow along via
live video and
live stats.
The winner of Saturday afternoon's quarterfinal will move on to the semifinals on Wednesday, March 2 against the winner of the quarterfinal between No. 6 seed Saint Mary's and No. 3 seed Saint John's. The Cardinals and Johnnies square off at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 27. Saturday's other two quarterfinals both start at 7 p.m. and feature No. 9 seed Gustavus at No. 1 seed Augsburg and No. 5 seed Bethel at No. 4 seed St. Scholastica.
The Oles are making their 13th appearance in the MIAC Playoffs in program history and are in the tournament for the first time since 2014. St. Olaf is 8-12-0 all-time in the MIAC Playoffs and won the tournament title in 2006 as the No. 3 seed. All nine teams in the conference qualified for the MIAC Playoffs this season due to the COVID-19 pandemic altering the number of games teams were able to get in during the regular season.
St. Olaf claimed five of a possible six points from the two regular-season meetings with Concordia back on Nov. 19-20 in Northfield. First year
Matthew Pointer scored at 1:38 of overtime on a 2-on-1 rush with junior
Evan Shoemaker to give the Oles a
2-1 victory in the opener, which was St. Olaf's first win over the Cobbers since 2017. The next day, sophomore
Luke Suter scored twice in regulation and first years
Ben Luscko and
Jonathan Young scored in the shootout, as the Oles claimed the extra point in the standings following a
3-3 tie.
Saturday afternoon's game will be just the second postseason meeting between the two programs and the first in Moorhead. Fourth-seeded St. Olaf built a 4-1 lead early in the second period and held on for a 5-3 win in the quarterfinals on Feb. 28, 2014 in the only prior meeting in the MIAC Playoffs. The Oles went on to fall, 2-1, to top-seeded and fifth-ranked St. Thomas in the semifinals the next day.
Eighty-four percent (147-of-175 of St. Olaf's points and 85.3 percent (58-of-68) of the team's goals this season have come from skaters playing their first full season of college hockey. First year
Tyler Cooper leads the team in goals (12) and points (20), while ranking second in the MIAC in goals in conference games (9) and tied for fifth in overall goals (12). Classmate
Sean Walsh is tied for ninth in the conference in goals (10), making him and Cooper the first pair of Ole teammates with at least 10 goals in a season since Drew Otto '18 and JT Paine '17 in 2016-17.
First year
Ethan Hersant has a team-leading 12 assists, which ranks tied for 11th in the conference, as nine Oles have recorded double-digit points this season. Four goaltenders have seen action between the pipes for St. Olaf, with sophomore
Lukas Haugen and first year
Thomas Lalonde combining to start 17 of the Oles' 25 games.
Haugen is 5-5-0 and leads the team in goals-against average (2.99), save percentage (.901), and saves (254), while Lalonde is 2-5-0 with a 3.12 goals-against average, .898 save percentage, and 220 saves to his credit.
As a team, St. Olaf has the fewest penalty minutes in the MIAC (213) and boasts the conference's fourth-best penalty kill at 84.8 percent (78-for-92). The Oles' power-play unit ranks fifth in the conference at 17.3 percent (17-for-98).
