Photo Credit: Michigan Tech

HOUGHTON, Mich. - Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan skated to a 1-1 overtime tie in their third and final meeting of the season in a rare Tuesday (Jan. 12) night game at the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena. The Huskies (3-18-1) and Wildcats (9-8-5) split their previous two meetings this season with each team winning at home.

“I felt the guys did a terrific job being more aggressive,” said Jamie Russell. “We had a longer bench and (Ryan) Bunger had a huge blocked shot and (Mikael) Lickteig had a good opportunity on the penalty kill. I thought we made good reads. You’ve got to have anticipation. I thought a number of kills we had we didn’t even give up a shot on goal. Kattelus was clearly our most dominant center man on the face off dot. I thought that he generated a lot, and he was solid defensively.”

Junior Bennett Royer extended his point streak to three games after scoring the only goal for the Huskies at 12:24 of the second period. The Calgary, Alberta, native took his time before firing a slap shot from the boards over the glove of senior NMU goalie Brian Stewart.

The Wildcats tied the game with a goal of their own at 13:34. Junior Phil Fox used a pass from sophomore Justin Florek to send a wrist shot over the glove of Tech freshman goalie Kevin Genoe for his fourth goal of the season.

The Huskies had a golden opportunity short handed with four minutes remaining in the period. Junior Eric Kattelus made a quality pass to fellow junior Jordan Baker who was unable to find the back of the net.

Neither team could find the game-winning goal for the duration of the game and had to settle for the 1-1 tie.

Genoe (2-12-1) finished with 33 saves for the Huskies and his counterpart, Stewart (7-6-4), finished with 32.

The two teams were nearly identical on the stat sheet. Both teams finished 0-5 on the power play and NMU ended with a slight 34-33 advantage in shots.

Tech will host WCHA foe Alaska Anchorage in a pair of games this weekend (Jan. 15-16).

Notes: The last time the Huskies and Wildcats tied was a 1-1 tie on Dec. 14, 2007 in Marquette. Tonight’s tie was the first overtime game the Huskies have played this season.