MARQUETTE — Heading into Wednesday’s season opener, the Northern Michigan University hockey team hadn’t played a game in more than 280 days, but it didn’t take long for it to shake off the long layoff.

The Wildcats blitzed Ferris State for three goals in the first period and held off a furious rally to earn a 5-4 nonconference victory at the Berry Events Center. Junior goalie Connor Ryckman made his first career start for NMU and finished with 26 saves.

“I told the players there’s no moral victories when you lose; same thing goes for a win,” NMU head coach Grant Potulny said. “Obviously, the penalties were something that’s concerning for me and it’s an area that has to get adjusted.

“But at the end of the day, going into the game, if you would’ve said we were gonna score five, I’d have been happy with that. And if you look across college hockey, the teams that have had COVID outbreaks and come back and played an opponent that had games under their belt, we’re the first team to win that game.

“So obviously, there were some challenges that we had to get through, but we’ll get better. Obviously, you’re hoping to get better each period of that game, I don’t necessarily know if that was the case, but there’s some good things.

“Some guys had some good games and there were some guys who hadn’t played in a year and a half, or two years, that got a game under their belt.”

In the first two minutes, it looked as if the Wildcats might be a little rusty as they were whistled for too many men. However, they killed off the penalty. After that, it was pretty much all NMU.

Sophomore winger A.J. Vanderbeck got the ‘Cats on the scoreboard going low left post on Ferris goalie Roni Salmenkangas at the 5:15 mark. Midway through the period, it was Vanderbeck’s linemate Brandon Schultz’s moment to shine as he flung the puck from the slot to the back of the net.

Late in the first, the Wildcats struck again off a lucky break. After Joe Nardi’s shot rang off the pipe, the puck came right to a waiting Colby Enns, who tapped it past Salmenkangas to put Northern up 3-0.

After killing off a Vanderbeck boarding call to start the second, NMU kept rolling offensively as Vanderbeck and Schultz broke free on a rush. The former then finished off the break, beating Salmenkangas high to make the score 4-0.

With the game getting away from them, the Bulldogs found life, scoring twice in about 20 seconds.

The Bulldogs almost picked up their third tally of the period during a 4-on-4, but replay showed the puck went off the far post and out.

A power play tally pushed NMU’s lead back three.

Two power-play tallies early in the third made it a one-goal game. The Bulldogs continued to buzz around the Wildcats’ net for the rest of the period, but couldn’t find the equalizer and NMU escaped with the win.