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“You know, momentum is a funny thing,” Wolfpack head coach Jay Moser said after Park hosted Mounds View on Saturday.

A fitting start to the interview given how the momentum of the season has swung in Parks favor. After starting 3-4, the Wolfpack have gone on a 6-1-1 run to bring their overall record to 9-5-1 and their conference record to 3-3-1 which is good for sixth place in the Suburban East conference and just two points out of fourth place.

The tie came last week against Roseville on January 20 at home. Park jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Tyler Schwartz connected with Nate Donlon to setup Charles Gutzman’s goal 2:52 into the first period. The game looked like it was going to be a battle of the goalies with no scoring for almost 35 minutes.

4:21 into the third, Brady Strand found the back of the net for the second park goal of the evening, assisted by Sam Janski and Jackson Rudh. The Wolfpack kept that lead until Roseville scored at 11:38 and then tied it with another goal at 16:01. The final, after the overtime period, 2-2.

Both teams were 0-for-1 on the powerplay and both teams only had two minutes of penalties, so it was a clean game in the books. Roseville managed 24 shots on goal to Parks 41.

A struggling 5-10-1 Mounds View team came to town on January 22 and Brenden Bloedel welcomed them with a goal at 1:52 of the first, assists to Schwartz and Gutzman. Even though they are struggling, Mounds View is still a tough team and they put two in to take the lead before the end of the first.

The second period, at 8:56, Janski tied the game with the help of Colton Porter and Strand. Mounds View fought back and grabbed the lead again. This is where things got interesting. For the first 25 or so minutes of the game, Mounds View was dictating the pace of play and they were mostly controlling the puck. Then the momentum change started and with less than a second left, Jackson Rudh hit Vincent Lucio who took a shot on goal. As the shot approached the net, it was redirected by Michael Schult for the goal, with one tenth of a second remaining in the period.

With the game tied at three headed into the third, Park took control of the game, they set the pace of play, controlled the puck and kept Mounds View guessing. At the 8:46 mark, Strand gave the Wolfpack the lead for good, assisted by Rudh. 5:44 later, Strand provided an insurance goal with the help of Rudh and Lucio to end the game with a 5-3 Wolfpack win.

Alex Harden faced 39 shots on goal from Mounds View while the Wolfpack put 30 on goal. Mounds View went to the penalty box four times for eight minutes and Park took advantage on two powerplays. Park successfully killed their four minutes of penalties on two infractions.

Moser started this article with “You know, momentum is a funny thing”.

Here is the rest of that as he talks about the way his team came back to win. “You know, momentum is a funny thing and scoring that goal with a second left on the clock in the second period gave us some positive energy and the momentum going into the third. We were getting good chances, so, we never felt like we were getting outplayed. Sometimes guys get down when they know where they’re getting out played. But honestly, the effort could only go up because we didn’t work real hard, that first period especially. But they fought through it. We don’t always do well in the third period that we did tonight.”

The switch between the second and third period was refreshing for the coaching staff to see, Moser explains. “It’s the mentality, and that’s the hard part with dealing with high school kids, trying to harness mental toughness. Some days it’s there and some days it’s not and we’re trying to stress the importance of being consistent with that, that mindset, that mentality of working hard, showing up ready to play, being prepared and, you know, doing the hard things because kids don’t always want to do the hard things to win.”

Student athletes is a term that everyone needs to remember when dealing with high school kids, Coach Moser gets that. These are kids, learning life lessons in a game. Sometimes those life lessons are being held accountable for doing the tough things to get the job done, and sometimes, it takes a kid to choose the easy path to learn that lesson the hard way. Harden has stepped up for Park in a big way, doing the hard stuff between the pipes to keep the Wolfpack in games.

Moser was pleased with his goalies’ efforts tonight, “We need him to play well for us to win games because we know we’re going to give up our chances. It’s just part of the deal and he came through big when he needed to.”

Park has played game one of a six game homestand. Game two is January 26 against East Ridge at 7:30 p.m. followed by Stillwater at 7:00 p.m. on January 27 then Woodbury on January 29 at 7:00 p.m.

Sam Janski had an assist and first game tying goal in the second period. Janksi spent a lot of time doing the tough work in front of the net to give others a chance to score all game. Photo by Bruce Karnick.