This past weekend, the Colorado State men’s hockey team hosted the Western Michigan Stallions in a doubleheader. The Rams were on the hunt for their first win of the season, while Western Michigan looked to strengthen their record with two victories on the road.

Check out the highlights!

Friday’s matchup was played with aggression. Just one minute and eight seconds into the contest, Western Michigan forward Kyle Berry received a two-minute minor for high sticking. Seventy-three seconds later, CSU forward Noah Miller was guilty of a boarding penalty. 

These early penalties set the tone for the game, and four more penalties followed, including a five-minute major for butt-ending by Stallions forward Brennan Osen, which resulted in a game misconduct.

On that five-minute major penalty, CSU cracked the scoreboard when Cade Warner wristed the puck past Stallions goaltender Alex Hufford from the right circle after a clean face-off win by John Tower.

A little under three minutes later, CSU capitalized on the same power play when forward Nikolas Marconcini deflected a Warner shot in front of the crease. CSU seized a 2-0 lead at the end of the first period.

The second frame was rather quiet in terms of scoring. Nevertheless, aggressive play continued with seven additional penalties, including an unsportsmanlike minor to Rams forward Ben Joseph.

The third period yielded seven more penalties, including two Western Michigan game misconducts. The multitude of penalties provided plenty of opportunities but not necessarily goals. However, CSU capitalized on a power play midway through the period, courtesy of a Vincent Mastrandrea slap shot that whistled past Hufford’s glove. CSU goaltender Joe Morgan preserved the shutout, and the Rams recorded their first win of the season 3-0.

“Morgan looked great,” Assistant Coach Austin Ansay said. “He hasn’t had a shutout in a long time. … Well deserved by him.”

CSU forward Liam Millar added, “All in all, we played great. … We want to be hard to play against. We want to make guys not want to come in here and play us, and we did that tonight.”

The Rams’ on-ice dominance continued on Saturday. Just one minute in, CSU opened the scoring when Michael Gebhardt fired a turnaround wrist shot past Western Michigan goaltender Justin Thayer.

CSU then cashed in on a power play thanks to a Warner tally. Western Michigan, however, responded nearly five minutes later when forward Wyatt Ford cruised down the right-wing slot on a two-on-one counter attack and flipped the puck over Morgan’s glove.

CSU entered the first intermission with a slim 2-1 advantage. Unfortunately for Western Michigan, CSU’s offense exploded thanks to a plethora of power plays.

Due to the Stallions’ continued undisciplined play, numerous penalties ensured plenty of scoring opportunities for the Rams. Frustration yielded 19 Western Michigan penalties, amounting to six CSU goals on 14 attempts with the man advantage.

CSU scored two additional tallies, including a short-handed goal by Warner, inevitably resulting in a 10-2 blowout victory. The Stallions finished the weekend with an astounding 146 penalty minutes, while the Rams racked up 64 minutes over the two games.

“We really tried to work on special teams and just offensive rushes and different variations that we could utilize,” Assistant Coach Jameson Wicks said. “Our guys were clicking this weekend. … We were shooting the puck a lot more too. We weren’t passing up opportunities to shoot the puck, and we ended up on the better side of that this weekend.”

Next, CSU will travel to Arizona for a trio of games against Arizona State and the University of Arizona starting on Thursday.

Brandon Kruse can be reached at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @BrandonKruse9.