by Adam Wodon/Managing Editor (@chn-adam-wodon)
Tyler McKenzie
When a band comes out for an encore, it can either mail in a song or two, completely change the tone, or maybe invite out a celebrity guest for a facile cover. Or, it can tear the roof off by taking things to another level.
Western Michigan is not content with the first three. It’s trying to do the latter, one year after winning the program’s first national championship.
Getting to that point was an amazing journey over many years. But sports keeps right on going, adding new chapters. So, assuming you don’t shut the program down, you need to get back in there and try to do it again.
“In the summer, we had our three trophies in the locker room — the Penrose, the Frozen Faceoff, and national championship,” WMU coach Pat Ferschweiler said. “We start the year, they’re still in there, and maybe three weeks before the regular season starts, our captains came in and said, ‘Hey coach, is it OK if we take those trophies out of here, this team didn’t win it, last year’s team did.’ And we took them out and we display them upstairs now. But I thought that was a great sign that their heads were in the exact right spot. They enjoyed it, they recognized their accomplishment, which they should, it was a big deal — but now they’re 100 percent over that and ready to try to accomplish something different and new this year.”
The Broncos are coming off a road sweep of Denver, and rose back to No. 5 in the NPI, showing they are every bit the contender once again this season. It avenged the two losses to Denver at its own barn in November. Turnabout is fair play. That’s the only time this season WMU has been swept on a weekend.
Now, the Broncos have won seven in a row and 11 of the last 12, including a win at the Wisconsin holiday tournament.
“Denver is obviously a great team. There was a lot of things we did at (home) better than we did out there,” Ferschweiler said. “But their goaltender was world class when they played here. I still think it was strong at Denver, but we returned the favor of world class goaltending.”
Friday, Western managed to keep Denver in check most of the way. After Denver started pouring it on late, and got the game to within a goal at 2-1, the Broncos quickly thwarted the comeback hopes with a pair of empty netters. Hampton Slukynsky wound up with 35 saves in the win. WMU did this while killing 8 penalties during the game, and only had 3 power plays.
Denver came storming out Saturday, as home teams typically do in these situation, taking the lead 35 seconds into the game.
But WMU again asserted its authority, starting with a power-play goal from William Whitelaw, and then two goals from Owen Michaels to take a 3-1 lead. Michaels, who had been nursing an injury in the first half of the season, is fully healthy again and it shows.
“He looks like Owen Michels from last year,” Ferschweiler said about the 2025 NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. “He looks fast, he looks competitive, he’s ripping pucks, he’s playing confident. Any injury on a player, especially in your lower half, creates doubt. Not enough doubt not to play, but to be hyper-effective.”
The Broncos kept pouring it on from there, and at 5-2 in the third period, Slukynsky again stood up and stopped all 15 shots he faced, not allowing Denver back in the game.
“Hampton was world class,” Ferschweiler said. “The second game, Hampton made four world-class saves, and a lot of good ones on top of that. … He was great on Friday as well.”
Ferschweiler thought Denver was hampered by missing a key piece from its earlier sweep, freshman forward Brendan McMorrow, who got injured at the World Juniors.
“He was so fast in our first series, he put us on our heels. It was like a football team without their deep threat,” Ferschweiler said.
Last season, Western Michigan was No. 1 in scoring offense and No. 3 in defense. This year, despite all of the changes, it is No. 3 in offense, and has gotten by being 39th in defense.
“All our D can skate. If you can skate, you at least have a chance,” Ferschweiler said. “They skate more forward more than backwards, and that’s how we teach and that’s how we play. So I think we’re fairly effective as a team of taking time and space away. Certainly we’re not perfect. But we’re able to make people make plays before they want to, we’re able to skate it out a lot.”
Western famously has re-tooled its offense basically every season under Ferschweiler, and never seemed to miss a beat. It’s always been a testament to the coaching staff that it could do that so seamlessly, and it culminated in last year’s title.
This year, there was turnover to be sure, but no more than anyone else. Transfers like William Whitelaw, Zach Wisdom and Cole Spicer (who missed the early part of the season battling NCAA eligibility issues, and now is out injured) fit in smoothly.
The issue was more in the back. It was also a veteran group supplemented with transfers, and Slukynsky was coming back in net. But the Broncos ran into bumps. Sophomomre Joona Väisänen, building off his solid freshman season, was having a standout start, but was lost for the year to a knee injury. A few weeks later, junior Cole Crusberg-Roseen was likewise lost for the season. Two key right-shot defensemen, out. (Western Michigan added Alex Calbeck today from Chicago of the USHL, for reinforcements.)
“They’re gold anyway, and they took two of our pieces of gold out.”
“Part of the ability to cover up for our losses on defense is the ability to put pressure on teams and score,” Ferschweiler said. “The best defense there is is have the puck. … So we’re trying to adjust and do that more, especially with our young ‘D men in there.”
Amid it all, Slukynsky’s save percentage dipped below .900.
“Some of that was the play in front of him, adjusting (to the D losses), and some of that was, he had some weird breaks — like five goals off our defenseman and in, like ones not even going towards the net. Some were under his control,” Ferschweiler said.
“Last year, he won the championship in the USHL, played a long season; first half for us, World Junior gold medal, NCAA championship, then goes to the men’s worlds, doesn’t play but was there the entire time, then goes to L.A. Kings camp in the summer.
“That kid wouldn’t coast a day in his life. I think he overworks sometimes.”
Between fatigue and injuries, Slukynsky and Micheals both made the decision to decline an invitation to play for the U.S. Collegiate Selects over the holidays.
Slukynsky is playing lights out again, and the rest of the team had adjusted to the loss of the defensemen.
Against Denver, WMU only allowed three goals. The week before, there were two shutouts of Notre Dame. Everything is trending in the right direction.
Two games at Minnesota-Duluth are on the agenda for this weekend, so it doesn’t get easier. It’s a dogfight at the top, and remember, last year Western barely got through its first-round NCAA Tournament game. Anything can happen.
But in what should be to the surprise of no one, the Broncos have shown they will once again be a factor in March — and maybe April.
While all of this is going on, construction continues in earnest on the new Kalamazoo Events Center, which is located four blocks from campus. A new start of the art arena, coming soon, to replace Lawson.
“I drive by there at least once a week, so I can get all four sides and go ‘oooh,'” Ferschweiler said. “Now they’re working on the practice rink. But the main part of the bowl is almost complete. It’s really starting to look like the big, awesome structure that it is.”