Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey

Muskegon Lumberjacks’ success continues into Clark Cup Final

Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey
Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey

 

By @MichaelCaples –

The most successful season in the Muskegon Lumberjacks’ USHL history continued on May 5.

That night, on the road in Dubuque, Iowa, the Lumberjacks beat the Fighting Saints – perennial USHL contender – to emerge victorious in their winner-take-all Game 5.

With the win, the Lumberjacks punched their ticket to the Clark Cup Final, with one more best-of-five series standing in their way of USHL supremacy.

“We’re real excited,” Muskegon coach Todd Krygier said. “I mean, it’s funny because you start every year, you set some goals for the team and you know that you have to take one step at a time. The first step is getting into the playoffs, which obviously we were able to do, and then you take the next step which is winning the first round, and then you take the next and you win the next round. It’s kind of like you keep taking those little steps. Like I always tell the guys, a bunch of little steps lead to big goals.”

Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey
Muskegon goaltender Eric Schierhorn (Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey)

In their decisive Game 5 victory over Dubuque (a team that has won two of the last four USHL championships), Muskegon jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and held a 4-1 advantage before the home team started chipping away at the scoreboard disparity. At the halfway mark of the third period, the Fighting Saints made it 4-2, then minutes later, 4-3.

“The momentum shifted when they got those two goals, so I thought our guys did a great job keeping their composure, really making sure that we were playing well defensively, and they came through,” Krygier said.

A nerve-wracking conclusion to the series, along with losing 6-0 on home ice in Game 4, was a familiar position for the Lumberjacks. Krygier said that while no coach wants to even find themselves in that position, his team has a knack for digging holes for themselves but always finding a way to climb out of them.

“All year, we’ve been a team that we haven’t made things easy on ourselves, and we always put ourselves in a position where we put our backs against the wall and having to be in a position to win that next game,” the Lumberjacks’ bench boss said. “I don’t know why, but that’s when our team responds, and we’ve responded all year when we’ve been beat. When we lose throughout the whole year, we lose bad, so it was kind of one of those situations where we lost bad but we always respond well the next game. It’s hard to explain sometimes. As a coach you don’t want this to happen, you don’t want it to be that way, but teams are teams; they have their own character, they are the way they are and they have their own personality. You just try to work with it and that’s what was done throughout the year.”

It helps, of course, when they have one of the best goaltenders in the league on their roster. Alaska native Eric Schierhorn stopped more than 30 shots in every game against Dubuque, and he’s been one of the main reasons the Lumberjacks have advanced this far in the postseason.

“Eric Schierhorn, as I’ve always said, is the best goaltender in the league and he’s a competitor, he works extremely hard, he never gives up on a save, never gives up on a puck and he comes up big when we need him to come up big,” Krygier said. “He can’t win us games, we’ve still got to score one more goal than our opponent, we’ve still got to help out defensively, but he’s probably one of our top team guys where he’s truly grateful for the effort his teammates give in front of him every game.”

However, Krygier wants to make sure his team isn’t counting on Schierhorn too much when the Clark Cup Final starts on Saturday in Muskegon. The Lumberjacks will be facing the Sioux Falls Stampede, which feature talented Michigan natives Cooper Marody (Brighton) and Dakota Joshua (Dearborn) and a deep roster.

“We have to make sure we’re managing the puck well,” Krygier said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re playing our structure and systems real well without the puck. And then we’ve got to do a better job putting more shots on net, because their goaltender and our goaltender have similar statistics in the playoffs. They both have over a .920 save percentage and they’re both good size, good competitive goaltenders, so we’ve got to make sure we do a better job than we did against Dubuque getting pucks to the net. And not looking for the perfect play, but creating opportunities and long shots.”

With another playoff series victory, an impressive and historic season for the Lumberjacks will now continue deep into May.

“It’s obviously the first in franchise history to win the Eastern Conference and play for the Clark Cup. This is only my second year here coaching and John Vanbiesbrouck’s second year as general manager, so we’re really excited. We’ve only had one draft, we came in our first year and we did­n’t have a draft. We had all our players given to us, and we had to work with that. And then this year, we had a draft and made trades that we felt would help our organization be successful in the playoffs, and I think that the trades that Beezer has made for us have been absolutely huge in helping us be successful.”

USHL Clark Cup Final

Muskegon Lumberjacks vs. Sioux Falls Stampede

  • Game 1: Saturday, May 9th, 7:15 PM – Sioux Falls @ Muskegon
  • Game 2: Sunday, May 10th, 7:15 PM – Sioux Falls @ Muskegon
  • Game 3: Friday, May 15th, 7:05 PM – Muskegon @ Sioux Falls
  • Game 4: Sunday, May 17th, 6:05 PM – Muskegon @ Sioux Falls**
  • Game 5: Wednesday, May 20th, 7:15 PM – Sioux Falls @ Muskegon**

**if necessary
(all times reflect local start time)