MARQUETTE, Mich. – The Northern Michigan University hockey Wildcats tallied two first period goals in their 2-0 victory over the Michigan Technological University Huskies on  Friday (Oct. 25) night in their opening Western Collegiate Hockey Association contest. The two teams offered plenty of action to the sold-out crowd in the Berry Events Center as they combined for 18 penalties and 58 penalty minutes. With the win, the Wildcats earn their first victory in the WCHA and improve their overall record on the year to 2-3-0.  

The two first period goals were scored by by senior Stephan Vigier and freshman Brock Maschmeyer. Vigier buried the first goal at the 4:55 mark with the assists going to junior Reed Seckel and senior Erik Higby.  The goal was Vigiers fourth goal of the season. 

After a hooking penalty on MTU's Brad Stebner, the Wildcats notched their second goal of the game at 16:08. Maschmeyer, knocked in the power play goal to earn his second goal of the season. Higby tallied his second assist of the game and junior Luke Eibler also added an assist on Maschmeyers goal. "Maschmeyer was recruited as a defensemen and will eventually play defense… But bottomline is that he is a hockey player.  He knows the game and is now a converted forward," according to head coach Walt Kyle.

The Wildcats held their ground with the 2-0 lead for the final two periods to earn their first conference victory of the season.  Kyle added, "I thought we played well defensively, our special teams were pretty good, but we turned the puck over too much and we took too many penalties."

NMU outshot the Huskies, 33-24, on the night. Maschmeyer had five shots while and Vigier added four. Fourteen other Wildcats tallied shots on the night.

Redshirt freshman goaltender Mathias Dahlstrom had all 24 saves in his first career victory, and shut-out, as a Wildcat. Pheonix Copley had 30 saves for MTU.  "He (Dahlstrom) has been outstanding for us in goal…. He was really, really solid tonight…. He wasn't consistently peppered with shots but then boom Tech would have the puck and a great scoring chance that he had to stop. He responded really well and we are very pleased with his play."

The Huskies (0-4-1 and 0-1-0 WCHA) had 42 minutes on 10 penalties, allowing NMU to go 1-for-6 on the man advantage. NMU finished with 16 minutes on eight penalties.

The home-and-home series against MTU wraps up on Saturday (Oct. 26) evening in Houghton with puck dropping at 7:07 p.m from the SDC.