×

New Ulm preps for hockey playoffs

In the second game of this season, the New Ulm Eagles boys’ hockey team hosted Hutchinson at the New Ulm Civic Center.

The game ended in a 2-2 tie and both teams moved on into the bulk of their regular season.

At 7 p.m. on Thursday at the New Ulm Civic Center, these same two teams meet again, this time in the Section 3A Tournament. Unlike their first meeting, a winner will be determined with the loser’s season over and the winner advancing to Saturday’s semi-final game at 5:30 p.m. at Don Roberts Ice Arena at Gustavus Adolphus College.

“We played them at the beginning of the season and they had two power play goals late in the game,” said Eagles’ coach Ryan Neuman, who has his team at 14-10-1 going into the game. “We really do not know much about them. They did get beat by Waconia (6-3) last week — which is a common opponent (New Ulm beat Waconia 4-1 earlier in the season).

The Tigers, seeded fifth, lost to second-seeded Litchfield/Dassel-Cokato twice while New Ulm beat L/DC (seeded third in the section) in their only meeting of the season.

The Dragons also beat St.Peter twice while New Ulm lost twice to St, Peter.

However, Hutchinson comes in dragging a five-game losing streak into this game and have been outscored 23-3.

The Eagles enter this game having gone 8-1 in their last nine games with their only loss a 3-2 overtime loss to top-seeded Luverne in a game New Ulm lead 2-1 going into the final two minutes.

The Eagles were seeded fourth in the section which Neuman said “I can say that I was not pleased with — I thought that we deserved at least a two or a three seed considering that we beat all three teams ranked ahead of us. We did split with Luverne and Marshall. That kind of speaks for itself — I do not know where some of the (section) coaching voting came from.”

Neuman said that it will be tough to score against Hutchinson.

“They have one of the top goalies in the section (Brooks Telecky, who has a 3.86 goals against average and has faced 884 shots this season) so we have to generate shots and get traffic in front of the net and capitalize in front of the net when we get them.”

Those shots will probably come off of the sticks of Brandon Mehlhop who leads the team with 61 points on 20 goals and 41 assists. The 41 assists is fourth best in the state.

Nate Miller has 21 goals and 22 assists with Tomas Babik coming on late and now has 15 goals and 17 assists. Freshman Glavine Schugel (13-10-23), Brady Asmus (12-10-22) and Landon Strong (11-8-19) add depth to the scoring,

New Ulm goaltender Jack Raymond carries a solid 2.27 GAA into this game.

If the Eagles win Thursday they would probably face Luverne at 5:30 p..m Saturday at Gustavus for the third time this season with the winner advancing to the 3A title game.

“We are not looking past Hutchinson and that is my job as a coach to not let them do that,” Neuman said. “We need to go one step at a time.’

New Ulm may get some added depth for the sections with the additions of some players from the JV team that went 17-2 this season.

STEEL CLOSE OUT HOME REGULAR SEASON TONIGHT: The New Ulm Steel close out their home regular season schedule at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the New Ulm Civic Center when they host Willmar.

The Steel, now 22-15-0-3 have road games after Sunday at Alexandria; Oregon Wisconsin, Willmar and Granite City before playoffs begin either March 17th or 19th.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper?
   

COMMENTS

Starting at $4.38/week.

Subscribe Today