MEQUON, Wis. — As they head into their final weekend of the 2021-22 season, the Finlandia Lions men’s hockey team is still searching for something positive they can hang their hats on to close out.

The Lions, who are mired in an 18-game losing streak, head to Mequon, Wisconsin, to face the Concordia Wisconsin Falcons, who come into the weekend having lost eight in a row themselves.

The Lions and Falcons are scheduled for puck drop at 8 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Saturday at the Ozaukee Ice Center.

The Falcons come into this weekend 2-19-2 overall and 1-14-1 in NCHA play.

They are led offensively by senior defenseman Cory Dennis, who has team-highs with nine goals and 16 points. Sophomore forward Jordan Guiney has also played well, racking up a team-high six goals and 14 points.

Sophomore goaltender Liam McGarva has seen action in 14 contests, starting 11 of them. He has a 5.41 goals against average and a .898 save percentage.

Tough weekend in Wisconsin

Last weekend, the Lions were outshot 34-32 Friday night, but fell 4-0 to the Marian Sabres in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Saturday, they ran out of gas, getting out shot 53-12 and falling 5-0.

The Lions lost three players to injury over the course of the game Friday. Coupled with the lack of scoring (the Lions have only scored four or more goals once this season), the Lions have continued to struggle their way through weekends, even against teams they match up well with.

“It’s been a serious lack of scoring, but a lot of the guys that we were counting on this year to do the scoring are in the stands or are sitting at home watching the game,” head coach Joe Burcar said. “Moral victory, moral victory, but at the same time, these guys keep plugging away. I just have to give them credit for that.”

Saturday’s loss looks even worse on paper than it did in person due to the shot gap. While he has not had the fifth year he wanted in terms of number, goaltender Marcus Gloss did what he could to keep the Lions in the contest both nights against the Sabres.

“We can do okay on Friday night, but then we just run out of gas,” said Burcar. “Thank God for Marcus. I mean, we just had nothing in the tank on Saturday.”

Despite all the struggles, both in terms of overall health and offensive health, Burcar maintains that the players are willing to fight their way through their current struggles.

“We continue to talk to these guys 1-on-1, team meetings, and they, I say this every week, ‘Thank God this core is strong,'” Burcar said. “This group really connected, really got along, really did a lot of good things together. It stayed that way throughout the season. I really, truly, believe it’s keeping us together right now.”

Frustration on horizon for coach

Burcar is in his sixth season at the helm since returning to Finlandia. This year’s group is his fifth recruiting class, as he took the head coaching position in August 2016, which gave him no time to recruit for his first season.

By Year Five, typically, coaches who take over a program have a roster full of their own recruits, which is when the window of opportunity opens for a team to find success. Since Burcar agreed to return to Hancock, he has seen no shortage of challenges, whether it was the first year, where he took over late in the offseason, or the last two seasons where the team has had to wrestle with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health issues some student athletes, or this season’s rash of injuries that could see no less than seven players elect to have surgery in the offseason to repair damage suffered this season.

Burcar admits that it is hard not to show his frustration with the outcomes of games.

“Frustration is at a high level,” he said. “Let’s be honest. Coming back here, you have to put your plan together and your years 2, 3, 4, 5, and and beyond. It’s just frustrating because the plan this year was really to take that next step. We have a lot of good pieces here, and we had the goaltender in Marcus to do that. Unfortunately, it’s out of my control, anybody else’s control, what’s happened this year with the amount of injuries we had.”

Given that Gloss decided to come back to school for a fifth year, gaining credits towards another degree, Burcar is especially disappointed that, as a team, the Lions have not been able to figure out a way to finish with at least one more win to this point.

“I really feel for him and am frustrated for him not to see success this year, because he was really excited,” said Burcar of Gloss. “He wanted to come back. It wasn’t like sitting down day after day, trying to convince him and beg him to come back.He was really excited to come back with what we had coming in. So, those are the frustrating things.”