WINONA, Minn. — When the Saint Mary's University men's hockey team takes the ice on Wednesday evening against St. Olaf, it will officially mark the opening of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Playoffs.
 
Emphasis on "officially."
 
Unofficially, the Cardinals have been in playoff-mode for weeks.
 
"For about the last two, three weeks, we've approached every game like it's a playoff game — we had to take that approach because of the hole we dug for ourselves with our slow start to the (conference) season," said Saint Mary's coach Ryan Egan. "But the guys never gave up, they put their nose to the grindstone and just got to work."
 
After opening the year with just one win in their first six conference games, going 1-4-1 — not to mention a sluggish 2-8-2 showing through the first 12 games of the regular season — Saint Mary's began to turn things around.
 
Starting, ironically, with their MIAC regular-season series against the Oles on Jan. 12-13.
 
Saint Mary's came away from that weekend series with 5-3 and 3-2 victories, and closed out the season with series splits against Bethel, Saint John's, and St. Scholastica— and a playoff-clinching sweep of Concordia last weekend — to claw their way into the conference's five-team post-season tournament.
 
"It's interesting how things can change so quickly in the world of sport," said Egan. "There was potentially a breaking point in our season, where I thought something was off and I said to myself, 'this just isn't working.' I got my leadership together and we had a long conversation.
 
"Ultimately, some things needed to change — I needed more from them and they needed something different from me and my staff," Egan added. "It was another sign of the character in our group to step up and have some hard conversations about the future of this team and how we could find success."
 
And success they have found.
 
"Coming back from break, there was a lot of outside noise out there that people were counting us out," said junior goalie A.J. Ruskowski (Traverse City, Mich.), who played a key role in the Cardinals' late-season charge, stopping 171 shots in SMU's final two weekend series — kicking out 81 shots against St. Scholastica on Feb. 9-10, including a career-high 48 in SMU's 4-2 win over the playoff-bound Saints on Feb. 9, before adding back-to-back 45-save efforts last weekend against Concordia. "But in the room, we didn't let that get in the way of what we knew we were capable of. The struggles we faced as a group at the beginning of the season helped mold our team and individuals into what was needed to play the game the way we knew we could.
 
"There is no quit in our locker room," added Ruskowski. "We have all had our fair share of ups and downs, and through it all, we have never strayed from the course. What changed? I don't know if you can pinpoint one specific detail in our game— the puck just started finding the back of our opponents net and staying out of ours."
 
Ruskowski certainly had a hand in keeping the puck out of the Cardinals' net — boasting a 3.36 goals-against-average and .916 save percentage, to go along with 30+ saves in all 13 of his starts — while a plethora of Cardinal snipers have done their part lighting the lamp at the other end.
 
Bud Winter (St. Louis, Mo.) and Colin Tushie (Prior Lake, Minn.) head into post-season play leading the team with 11 and 10 goals, respectively, giving the Cardinals a pair of double-digit goal scorers for the first time since Kyle Meeh and Tommy Stang finished with 13 and 11 goals, respectively, during the 2019-20 season.
 
Winter and Tushie have not done it alone, however. Saint Mary's 64 goals have come from 22 different players, and every Cardinal has recorded at least one point.
 
"This group is a perfect example of a true team," said Egan. "They are all in it for each other, and they are all willing to whatever it takes to be successful — whatever their role needs to be to achieve that goal."
 
A goal that is not fulfilled by just making the MIAC Playoffs — the Cardinals have much higher expectations.
 
"Our expectations from Day 1 were to be a contending team and take that next step as a program," said Ruskowski. "A home playoff game means a lot to us, but we are not satisfied with just making the postseason.
 
"Now we have to show up when it matters most — for each other, for every classmate and faculty member who supports us, for every alumni who has put on the jersey before us, and for everyone who will put the jersey on after us."