Michigan Tech center Ryder Matter looks for a teammate to pass to during an exhibition game against Northern Michigan Saturday, Oct. 5, at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — Last season, it took the Michigan Tech Huskies hockey team nine games to earn their first two wins of the season, a sweep of Augustanan in the first weekend of November. Just one weekend into this season, the Huskies are already 2-0 thanks to a pair of 2-1 wins over the Alaska Nanooks.

That does not mean that things are where coach Joe Shawhan wants them yet, by any means.

“It’s a good start for the guys,” he said. “This time of the year there’s a lot of learning, a lot of teaching, a lot of acclimating. You’re trying to position yourself in the best possible light to have a good year, to be relevant in that large conversation.

“I believe that Alaska is going to win a lot of hockey games this year. They’re going to beat some teams that, if we can continue to grow, continue to get better, will help us down the road. I think that Alaska is going to be a very good team. We saw how they compete, they skate, and they’re going to be a very good team.”

After their season-opening scrimmage against Northern Michigan, Shawhan mentioned that he was looking for his team to show its identity quickly this season. He mentioned players like senior forward Alex Nordstrom and sophomore forward Lauri Raiman as players he wanted the rest of his lineup to emulate in how hard they work shift in and shift out.

Friday night against Alaska, the Huskies throughout the lineup showed that they were listening to what their coach was looking for in how hard they worked to keep Alaska from dictating play.

“That’s the encouraging thing is we have an idea of what we’re capable of now within the style of play,” said Shawhan. “I do think that given the offensive chances that we have, guys that will score goals. It’s a matter of creating those chances.”

While the Huskies only scored four goals on the weekend, it was enough to earn the two wins.

“We’re fortunate we scored four goals in the weekend and got two wins,” Shawhan said. “Fortunate that we only gave up two on the weekend, one each night. So, we’ll work hard to try to get the offensive side of it improved, while continuing to develop our defensive side, and try to look for that goal-differential margin to ensure success on most given nights.”

One player amongst the forwards that Shawhan liked was Stiven Sardarian. The junior, who transferred to Michigan Tech from New Hampshire, is still learning to play center, but Shawhan feels that his offensive instincts are very good.

“He’s an elite passer, and Elias Jansen, who’s a very good finisher, there’s components within the line that work really well,” said Shawhan. “We’re still trying to find combinations that do the job. You’ve got speed on the outside with (Owen) Baker playing on that line right now and a pretty good compete level. They’ve scored some good goals for us. Baker’s been involved in some offense for us in the early going as well.

“He’s (Sardarian) an elite passer. Guys like playing with him. He’s acclimating to a new position, center ice. So, there’s a bit of an adjustment for that. But, he seems to be doing very well at it.”

Baker, and defenseman Viktor Hurtig are both transfers from Michigan State. Goaltender Derek Mullahy is a transfer from Harvard. Shawhan likes what he it seeing from all the new Huskies.

“I like how all the guys are finding their way,” he said. “With new players, they get a little bit of a grace. Where we’re looking at is where we judge kind of the whole situation right now, on the growth of our returning players. Are they really ready to step? Can they make the strides and make the gains that’ll help them be the player that they want to be? Or in some ways, have they reached their limit of what they can offer? Then we have a good idea of what that is. So, we’re looking for some guys to get a little bit of increased ice time to see if they can grow, veteran-wise, because they should look better right now than the new players because of their understanding.”

A player that Shawhan feels is taking advantage of an increased role is junior defenseman Kasper Vaharautio, who has been paired early in the season with Hurtig to form the Huskies’ top shutdown pair.

“He’s off-the-charts competitive, in every drill, all the time,” Shawhan said. “He implements what you would like your players to understand is the protocol for how you improve as a hockey player, and how you get the most out of your ability. If he’s involved in a mistake, where you think it’s a mistake, oftentimes it’s not. ‘Wow, I see what he was doing there on that play,’ higher level than most.

“He’s very studious about the game. His compete level is off the charts, and he continues to grow and increase in value. He’s really, I feel, he’s a letter guy. I put him in the same room as the guys that wear the letters for us. He probably should have a letter on, because he does everything the way we want it done. You see that again in the way he plays, shot blocking, everything he does, what he overcomes. I have utmost respect for Kasper.”

PLAN FOR THE BYE WEEK

While the Huskies won their first two games, Shawhan still wants to see more improvement from his team. Having a bye week right after their first series of the year could be beneficial as he and his staff know what they need to work on right away.

“There’s things we certainly had to do,” he said. “We’re going to put in a good hard week of practice this week, and we’ll be able to get some extra time with that instead of backing off as the week goes on a little bit, for competitive purposes and things like that. We’ll be able to push some guys through their limit. The hope is to give them a couple of days off on the weekend, probably their last one till maybe Christmas, where they can relax and come back, and get out on Monday, but with the basis that we’ve created this week in some areas that I think we still need to grow. We’ll constantly need to grow as the year goes on. So, you always try to take advantage of these later in the year.”