Dryden McKay, who was just 3 shutouts shy of tying the career record of 27 held by Ryan Miller, kicked off the campaign with an 18-save blanking of the Minutemen.
That game set te tone for the entire season; Minnesota State relied on a constant offensive attack that kept the puck in their opponent's end.
When their defense was called upon, the corps, led by Jake Livingstone and captain Wyatt Aamodt, was up to the task and limited the opposing forwards to fewer than 20 shots on goal on most nights.
While the CCHA's overall weakness held Minnesota State back, the sheer number of victories and the overwhelming nature of play could not be ignored and MSU received the #1 ranking for the second time in late-November.
McKay was forced to miss the team's first game against Lake Superior State, giving freshman Keenan Rancier his first career start.
A demolition of Northern Michigan, who had upset the Mavs the year before, sealed a top seed and set the team up for a showdown against Bemidji State.
MSU was held scoreless for more than half the game and, when Bemidji netted the first goal around the mid-way point of the match, it appeared that the boys in green may have had a chance.
The win was also McKay's 35 victory on the season, breaking the record that had jointly been held by college hockey legends Robb Stauber and Marty Turco.
Everything changed in the later part of the second period when Sean Farrell fired a puck from behind the goal line that deflected in off of McKay's skate.
Ondřej Pavel scored on a rush early in the third to put a little distance between the two but Harvard would not go away and they netted a third marker on the power play with 3:31 left on the clock.
The quarterfinal match against Notre Dame turned into a classic goaltending battle with both McKay and Matthew Galajda playing nearly perfect games.
The final game of the year looked to be following a familiar format when Minnesota State controlled the puck from the opening faceoff and outshout Denver 18–8 through the first 40 minutes.
In the final frame, MSU appeared to move away from the constant attack that was the hallmark of the team and played a more traditional defensive shell.
When the final buzzer sounded, one bad period had completely sunk Minnesota State's entire season and ruined the championship hopes for the school.
After the season, it was reported that Dryden McKay, who had by then won the Hobey Baker Award, accepted a 6-month suspension from international hockey for testing positive for a banned substance.
[3] The United States Anti-Doping Agency could have imposed as much as a 4-year suspension, however, the body accepted the evidence that McKay provided which proved he had unwittingly consumed the substance as part of an effort to combat COVID-19.