After coming within 1 period of winning a national championship, Minnesota State lost many of the key players that brought it near the pinnacle of college hockey.

Aside from losing half of its defensive corps, including the team captain, MSU also lost its top two scorers and Hobey Baker Award-winning starting goaltender.

During the first half of the season, the team alternated between Keenan Rancier and Alexander Tracy as the starting goaltender to determine which, if either, would become the Mavericks primary netminder.

Desperately needing a winning streak to save their season, the Mavericks offence found some consistency and scored at least 3 goals in each of their games during the month of January.

The Mavs stumbled a bit at the end, earning splits in each of their final three weekends and were in the middle of the bubble for the tournament when they began their postseason push.

The biggest problem for the Mavs was that the Wildcat goalie, Béni Halász, had gotten hot at the end of the season and was continuing his strong play by shutting down the MSU offense.

The sudden reversal in fortune sapped all the energy from the Wildcats and it took just 68 seconds of overtime for Zach Krajnik to send the Mavs into the NCAA tournament.

A furious attempt to tie the game in the third only enabled the Huskies to double their goal total to 4 over the final 30 minutes and end the Mavericks' season.