Just like a game, a hockey season can be split into three periods, with season-ending tournaments counting as overtime.

With two-thirds of the ISU men’s hockey season in the books, ISU hockey coach Al Murdoch reflected on the second period of the season.

The team had a very successful first period of their season, going 12-2. The Cyclones stuck to their winning ways in their second period and went 12-3-1, pushing their overall record to 24-5-1 on the season. Murdoch said there were four important aspects of the second period of the season.

Tournaments

The Cyclones took part in two different tournaments, emerging from the Cyclone Thanksgiving Classic as the undisputed champions, winning all three games. Then they participated in the Arizona State Desert Classic, winning the first two games 3-1 and 5-4 against Arizona and Arizona State respectively, before losing the third game 5-4 to the No. 4 ranked – and tournament champion – Penn State.

“I think it’s been like stairsteps,” Murdoch said. “This tournament was tougher than the one at Thanksgiving, and it was very comparable to what we’ll run into at Nationals.”

The No. 5 Cyclones faced three ranked teams that participated in the Arizona State Desert Classic, including No. 12 Arizona, No. 10 Arizona State and No. 4 Penn State, which are all potential opponents in the National tournament.

Offense

In the first period of the season, the Cyclone offense averaged 8.1 goals per game. During the second period, the Cyclones dropped to an average of 5.2. Murdoch said this drop may be due to the way the schedule was constructed before the season. “Intentionally some of our competition in the early stage of the season is softer,” he said. “As the season progresses the competition gets tougher.”

Despite the drop in goals, consistency has been the key for the Cyclone offense. They scored three or more goals in 13 of 15 games.

Defense

Although the strength of the opponents has increased and hurt the offense’s scoring output, the defense has improved statistically. During the first third of the season, the defense gave up an average of 2.8 goals per game and allowed an average of only 2.7 goals per game during the second period.

“I felt really good about our defensive sets and the skills of all our defensemen,” Murdoch said.

Resiliency

Resiliency was the main trend over the second period of the Cyclones season. The Cyclones were sometimes in tough situations, and were tested on a more regular basis. Often they fell behind early, before storming back late for come-from-behind wins. Five of their games went into overtime, which went down to a shootout three times. The Cyclones won two of three.

“An Iowa State team typically is a little stronger and a little better conditioned than our opponents,” Murdoch said. “Therefore we win a lot of third periods and a lot of overtimes.”

Murdoch said the adversity the Cyclones faced will play largely into the team’s ability to compete for the remainder of the regular season and into the tournament season.