Box Score

ST. CLOUD, Minn. – Cashen Naeve knows there are plenty of players in the Saint John's hockey locker room who could have been the superhero.
 
Saturday night, though, it was his turn to don the cape.
 
The freshman defenseman scored the game-winning goal 3:23 into overtime to lift the top-seeded Johnnies past second-seeded Gustavus Adolphus 4-3 in the MIAC playoff championship game at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
 
It was only the fifth goal of the season for Naeve (nave), a 2022 graduate of Wayzata High School who played three seasons of junior hockey before arriving in Collegeville this fall. But it was a big one, wrapping up the MIAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs and the program's first conference playoff title since 2013.
 
"Every guy in our locker room was probably thinking it was going to be them in that situation," said Naeve, whose team improved to 17-6-4 and will find out where it plays next when the NCAA pairings are announced at 8:30 p.m. Sunday (March 8) on ncaa.com.
 
"Everyone wants to score in that situation and we have a lot of guys who can do it. I just got lucky and it was me."
 
Luck was most certainly not on the Johnnies' side early. 
 
The Gusties (18-8-1) dominated play in the first period, seizing a 19-4 advantage in shots and taking a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal from Ludvig Mellgren with 2:52 to play before intermission. Less than two minutes later, Gustavus struck again on a goal by Riku Brown to take a two-goal lead into the locker rooms.
 
The Gusties added to that margin on a goal by Jack Wineman early in the second period, and suddenly SJU was facing a 3-0 deficit.
 
"We seem to find a way to make it harder on ourselves all the time, but we also always seem to find a way to get a win," SJU coach Doug Schueller said. 
 
"We're like a group of misfits. We're never perfect. But we always seem to find a way. I just told our guys 'Let's go out there and find a way to win again.'"
 
That's just what Schueller's players did, coming to life offensively midway through the second period and unleashing a flurry of shots. One finally connected when junior forward Chris Kernan (Maple Grove, Minn.) tipped the puck in from in front of the net with 9:40 remaining.
 
SJU cut the gap to 2-1 on a goal by junior forward Logan Lyke (Medina, Minn.) with 14:32 to play in the third period and tied things up when classmate Cam Boche (Lakeville, Minn.) scored with 5:42 remaining in regulation.


 
"We just had to play our game," Naeve said. "We've come back before. We knew it wasn't going to be easy. We just needed to find one and roll from there.
 
"We had some big power plays and some big penalty kills," he continued. "We got the puck out when we needed to. They stopped skating and we started. That changed the tide."
 
The Johnnies also got clutch play in goal from senior goaltender Jon Howe (Chanhassen, Minn.), who finished with 33 saves and stopped everything that came his way from early in the second period on.
 
"He's been our backbone all year," Schueller said. "I don't think he was perfect in the first period. He gave up some rebounds. But when we needed him to, he made the big saves.
 
"When you see 38 shots-on-goal against a team like this and you stop 35, that's a big night."
 
So now it's on to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2013.
 
"Nothing changes for us," Naeve said. "We still have to play our game and find a way to get it done. That's how we've approached things all season and we won't stop now."