MUSKEGON – Things were getting a little too quiet around Mercy Health Arena on Saturday night.
The Muskegon Lumberjacks were coming off a disappointing 4-3 overtime loss to Youngstown on Friday, which broke their exciting eight-game winning streak.
On Saturday they were clinging to a precarious 1-0 lead in the third period of the rematch between the two teams, and stood the chance of losing two in a row for the first time since late October.
Then forward Ben Strinden sprung to life, scoring two crucial goals within 22 seconds and propelling the Lumberjacks to a very big 4-0 victory over the Phantoms.
It really was a very big win indeed, because it completed an amazing worst-to-first climb for the Lumberjacks in the USHL Eastern Conference standings.
[1]The Jacks started the season in a terrible slump, with a 2-7-3 record after 10 games, and spent the first weeks of the season mired in last place in the conference.
They’ve won 19 of 23 games since then and have steadily climbed in the standings. Saturday’s win finally got them to the top of the mountain, giving them a 21-10-4 record and 46 points in the standings and pulling them into a tie for first place with the Chicago Steel.
The regular season is only a little over halfway over, but a long climb from worst to first is something to be proud of.
“It is pretty amazing,” said Strinden about the climb to first place. “We had to go through so much adversity and the start of the season was not that fun. It was tough on us, but we believed in the group we had, and we are starting to get rewarded for it. We have so much depth and we have tremendous goalies.”
The victory was also a very big deal for rookie goalie Cameron Korpi, who stopped 20 Youngstown shots to register the first shutout of his USHL career.
Korpi, whose play has earned him more ice time lately, improved his record to 4-2-1 on the season with a very nice 3.00 goals against average.
[2]Korpi of course had the assistance of a very stingy Lumberjacks defense, which held Youngstown to only 20 shots on goal on Saturday and 26 on Friday.
The Lumberjacks had 42 shots in Friday’s game alone and 33 on Saturday. Over the two games they outshot the Phantoms 75-46.
“It was fun, and the team played well in front of me,” Korpi said. “They made it easy for me. I am trying to win games whenever I can get in and that’s what we did.
“We didn’t get any goals in the first, but we outshot them 14-5 and our defense played unreal. Holding a team to 20 shots is a hard thing to do in this league.”
The first period was scoreless.
[3]The Jacks got on the scoreboard at 10:40 of the second period when Ethan Whitcomb had a shot blocked, then picked up his own rebound and popped it in the net for his sixth goal of the season.
Strinden did his damage early in the third period with two goals on the same shift.
He scored his first goal from close range at 6:01 of the third, then got the puck and raced in from the left side and put a high shot over the shoulder of Youngstown goalie Kyle Chauvette at the 6:23 mark, giving the Jacks a secure 3-09 lead.
Owen Mehlenbacher put the final touches on the win with an open-net goal at the 19:36 mark.
“I think overall it was a great weekend for us,” said Lumberjacks Coach Mike Hamilton, whose team will play two games in Green Bay next weekend. “We had probably 10 minutes we would have liked to have back yesterday, but besides that we got three out of four points and we will take that.”