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Mel Pearson doesn't mind admitting it.

The head coaching position at Michigan Tech wouldn't have interested him had he not been a former player for the Huskies.

"That's an absolute no," Pearson said. "I was content at Michigan (as a 23-year assistant under Red Berenson) — I'd been there so long and the university and Red had been so good to me. Every year we had a chance to win not only the league, but the national championship.

"But I'd tried to go back (to Michigan Tech) twice previously. And I don't want to say I felt obligated to go back, but it felt like the time was right to give something back to the school and try to resurrect the program."

So Pearson, after first turning down the Huskies last spring, eventually returned to Houghton, Mich., to take over a program that had gone 4-30-4 last year and 15-85-12 the past three seasons and hasn't earned home ice for the WCHA playoffs by finishing in the top half of the league since 1992-93.

And here are the Huskies now, 13-13-2 overall and 10-8-2 in the WCHA heading into a showdown this weekend with UNO (12-11-5, 9-7-4).

Michigan Tech, UNO and North Dakota are in a three-way tie for fifth in the league with 22 points, trailing third-place Colorado College by three points and fourth-place Denver by two.

The race for the six home-ice playoff spots includes eighth-place St. Cloud State, which has 21 points in league play.

No, Pearson said, he didn't think Michigan Tech — a near-unanimous pick to again finish last in the WCHA — was necessarily poised for a breakthrough when he took the job.

"I didn't have a feel for the team, but it wasn't too far into the season before we realized there were some good pieces here," he said. "We had to get the kids to believe in themselves, to understand that they were good Division I players. And we changed the style a little bit to one that seemed to suit the kids that we have here."

The Huskies started playing with a more aggressive forecheck and with a more wide-open style. They rank 13th in the country — fifth in the WCHA — with 3.18 goals per game.

They may have been a little sneaky early, too.

"When you've been whipping boys for years, teams have a tendency to overlook you," Pearson said. "That's played into it."

It hasn't hurt that senior captain Brett Olson, who missed half of last season with injury and played hurt in other games, is back. So is senior Jordan Baker, who missed all of last season.

Olson has nine goals and 18 assists for a team-high 27 points. Baker is at 8-16-24.

"That would be like us without (Terry) Broadhurst and (Matt) White," UNO coach Dean Blais said. "... not a very good team."

Pearson talked David Johnstone into leaving juniors a year earlier than scheduled, and he's responded with a 9-14-23 line. Freshmen Blake Pietila (8-12-20) and Tanner Kero (9-7-16) have also produced.

Goalie Josh Robinson, who had a 1-13-2 record with a 4.58 goals-against average and .884 save percentage last year, has responded to a full-time goaltending assistant — and a pretty fair one at that in volunteer Steve Shields, who played 10 seasons in the NHL and was one of 54 players Pearson recruited at Michigan who reached the NHL.

Robinson, a senior, is 12-10-2 with a 2.80 GAA and .911 save percentage this season.

"He's given us a chance to win, going into the third period, in just about every game," Pearson said.

So things came together early for Michigan Tech, which swept Wisconsin the opening weekend of WCHA play and got three points when then-No. 2 Denver came to town in late October.

The element of surprise seemed to evaporate, though, during a 5-10 stretch from early November to late January, with three of the wins coming against last-place Alaska-Anchorage and another against a sub-.500 St. Lawrence team.

Then the Huskies fell behind at top-ranked Minnesota-Duluth 4-0 in the first period Jan. 27.

"I was looking for the trap door on the bench," Pearson said. "You start to have visions of (losing) 14-0."

But the Huskies regrouped, battled to a 4-4 tie, then blasted the defending national champions 5-0 the following night, a nine-goal scoring outburst that got them back into the WCHA hunt.

And back onto the college hockey map. Michigan Tech, national champions in 1962, 1964 and 1975, is a proud program again.

"There's been excitement not only in town, but out of town, too, from our alums," Pearson said of the season-long revival. "It's nice hearing from guys from the 1960s, who will call or send us a note about how happy they are the program is coming back. I've shared some of those with our players, because they're the stewards of that now, and they're laying the foundation for a successful future."

Contact the writer:

402-444-1027, rob.white@owh.com

twitter.com/RWhiteOWH

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