The No. 9 ISU hockey team worked on special teams in practice last week and on Friday night the power-play unit delivered three goals in a tight 5-3 win against No. 11 Oakland.

One thing that wasn’t in the plan, however, was having two defensemen score two of those power-play goals and have three-point nights. Freshman defensemen Antti Helanto and senior defensemen and Cyclone captain Brandon Clark both notched a goal and two assists in the contest.

“Great job by the forwards, who made a screen for me, we got the puck through and it went in,” Helanto said. “It’s something we’ve been working on throughout the week and I’m glad it worked out the way it did tonight.”

Helanto now has one goal and five assists for a total of six points on the season. Clark had an assist on Helanto’s goal, and Helanto had an assist on Clark’s goal, showing tremendous chemistry, especially on the power play.

“I like playing with [Helanto] a lot,” Clark said. “He’s really easy to play with. He’s a really smart player. He moves the puck well, he works extremely hard, and that’s always good.”

Clark said that he can rely on Helanto and knows that he will be there to cover him if he steps up on any given play.

In a tight game where the Cyclones couldn’t find a way to establish a big lead, coach Al Murdoch liked the way his team was mentally.

“I felt that our bench was calm, collected and weren’t overreacting,” Murdoch said. “We tell them to be rested and ready for their next shift, and we got good production out of four lines.”

Freshman forward Jake Rombach scored the third Cyclone power-play goal. Junior forward Derek Kohles added a goal at even strength and freshman forward James Buttermore scored on the empty net to seal up the victory for the Cyclones with one minute remaining in the game.

Freshman goalie Peter Alexander got the start for the Cyclones and stopped 23 of the 26 shots he faced. Murdoch is spreading the workload pretty evenly between the goaltenders and doesn’t seem to have any one of them as a primary starter.

“Our goaltending is playing so darn good that I think I can play any goaltender at any time against anybody,” Murdoch said.