The longer a hockey season goes on, the less that coaches of teams in the bottom halves of their leagues look for perfection on game day.
If something’s working, pretty or not, let it work.
Such was the case Saturday for Colorado College in its shootout win at No. 16 Omaha, following a 2-2 tie inside Baxter Arena.
CC, which had entered 2023 looking firmly like a potential surprise top-half finisher in the NCHC, lost its last six games before Saturday, including a 3-2 loss Friday. Tigers coach Kris Mayotte wasn’t about to say his team’s response in the rematch was a work of art, but a 40-save showing from freshman goaltender Kaidan Mbereko, Noah Laba’s tying goal with 17 seconds left in regulation and shootout goals from Ryan Beck and Noah Serdachny helped put CC back in the right direction.
“We found a way,” Mayotte said in a postgame interview. “It wasn’t our best, really at any point. The only time I really felt like we were able to push or sustain anything was in the last five minutes of the third.”
Omaha had led twice through goals from Ty Mueller and Jack Randl, but Beck tied the game at 1-1 shortly after the midway point of the second period, and Laba’s 10th goal of the season forced overtime. The Tigers got there despite getting zero power plays in regulation, whereas UNO had five.
“At no point was it easy,” Mayotte said. “At really no point were we feeling good about how we were playing, or what we were able to get accomplished, but we found a way to get it done. Kaidan Mbereko was special again tonight (following a 36-save performance Friday in a 3-2 CC loss), you look at Laba scoring, you look at Beck scoring. We had guys step up. Our PK found a way to keep us in it, Berkie being a part of that, but once we kind of made a push in the last six minutes, the belief, the chatter, the talk was getting there, and they don’t ask how.
“We’ve had performances where we felt we were better than our result. Quite honestly, tonight we weren’t very good at any point, but to come out of this building (with a shootout win) against that team, with how they’re playing, it’s a huge confidence booster for our guys.”
Mbereko was named as the NCHC’s goaltender of the week for his performances at Baxter. He and fellow freshmen Beck, Laba and Serdachny helped lighten the load of junior forward Hunter McKown, the Tigers’ top scorer with 16 goals. He’s also the only CC player to reach the 20-point mark so far this season.
“He finished the game with six shots, so he was certainly impactful, but some other guys were able to pick up a little bit of the slack. Our ‘D’ corps battled hard, and it’s nice to see guys getting on the score sheet and finding a way to contribute. That’s going to help them build in their belief in what they can help us do.”
CC is 10 points back from fourth place in the NCHC standings and would visit third-place St. Cloud State if the playoffs started this weekend. Instead, the Tigers have remaining regular-season sets at Western Michigan this week, at home to North Dakota on Feb. 25-26, and a home-and-home series March 3-4 against Denver.
