St. Cloud State wins NCHC title, gets set for Minnesota State
Runners up in five of the last seven National Collegiate Hockey Conference tournaments, the St. Cloud State men’s hockey Huskies finally hoisted the 2023 cup Friday at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
With the 3-0 win over Colorado College (13-22-3, 6-15-3 NCHC), the Huskies (23-12-3, 12-9-3) continue to pick up momentum heading into the national tournament, locking up the conference’s automatic bid.
“I think it's pretty cool to win something,” senior forward Jami Krannila said. “Been here four years and losing close a few times, you know, finally got one thing out of the way. Now we know our next goal is a national championship.”
Krannila won most outstanding player for the conference tournament, posting two goals and an assist in the semifinal and championship rounds.
Led by Krannila’s line Friday, St. Cloud State was dominant on offense, controlling the puck in the scoring zone for much of the game. The Huskies outshot the Tigers, putting 27 pucks on goal to CC’s 17. In addition to Krannila, Grant Cruikshank and Kyler Kupka continue to be on fire for SCSU, each scoring a goal against Colorado. Cruikshank assisted Krannila’s score and Zach Okabe and Micah Miller both tallied an assist.
Despite its disappointing regular season, Colorado has been red-hot in the conference tournament, sweeping No. 7 Western Michigan (23-14-1) on the road and defeating the one-seed, No. 3 Denver (30-9-0, 19-5) in the Frozen Faceoff.
The circumstances make SCSU’s win all the more impressive and coach Brett Larson said the Huskies are coming out of the conference “battle-tested.”
“We’ve had to play some of the best teams in the country down the stretch,” he said. “We've had to fight through adversity. We've had to handle difficult situations. We've been behind in games, and were behind twice last night to a team (No. 18 North Dakota (18-15-6, 10-10-4)) that was playing great hockey, fighting for its life and we stayed resilient.”
Larson said his staff and team has been focused on the games in front of them and St. Cloud State has likely had an NCAA tournament at-large bid for several weeks. The team learned Sunday that it will be facing Minnesota State in Fargo, North Dakota, on Thursday at 5 p.m.
"You try to teach your players to be in the moment and try to do it as a staff as well,” Larson said. “We talked this morning about the only thing that matters is trying to become a champion tonight.”
The winners of the Hockey East, Eastern College Athletic Conference, Big Ten, NCHC, Central Collegiate Hockey Association and Atlantic Hockey Association receive automatic bids to the 16-team NCAA tournament, and a selection committee picks 10 more at-large teams.
All 16 teams are seeded, then the top four teams in the field are awarded the No. 1 seeds, the next four the No. 2 seeds, the next four the No. 3 seeds and the final four the No. 4 seeds.
St. Cloud State received the No. 2 seed in a regional bracket that also features top overall seed Minnesota.
At the beginning of the season, SCSU was left out of many preseason tournament projections and key injuries and a brutal NCHC schedule made for a bumpy middle of the season, including a streak of three series without a win. In late January and through February, the Huskies dropped two games in a row to No. 22 Minnesota Duluth (16-20-1, 10-14), tied two with Miami (Ohio) (8-24-4, 3-18-3), then tied and lost to North Dakota. Larson said the following series February 24 and 25 at now-No. 20 Omaha (19-1-3, 13-9-2) turned the season around.
“I don’t think it was hard to lose sight of (our goals),” Krannila said. “I think (the struggles) just made us want it more. We have guys that can step up and they did exactly that. We’ve been playing great hockey lately and now we’ve won (the conference).”
In addition to SCSU picking up an automatic bid, on Saturday No. 5 Boston (27-10) qualified for the national tournament with a 3-2 Hockey East tournament championship win over No. 13 Merrimack (23-13-1).
No. 10 Minnesota State (25-12-1) needed overtime to defeat Northern Michigan (21-17) 3-2 in the CCHA championship and No. 25 Colgate (19-15-5) kept its season alive with a defeat of No. 7 Harvard in the ECAC championship.
Ranked No. 41 of 61 DI teams, Canisius (20-18-3) snuck into the tournament with an AHA championship win over Holy Cross (17-21-3).
No. 1 Minnesota (26-8-1) has played like the best team in the country and its loss in the Big 10 championship did nothing to change its one-seed draw in the national tournament. In January, St. Cloud State split its regular-season series with the in-state rival, winning 3-0 at home, but losing 2-1 in overtime in Minneapolis.
Quinnipiac, Michigan and Denver earned the 2-4 seeds, respectively.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: SCSU wins conference championship
