It was an unprecedented week for former Trail Smoke Eaters in the NCAA as Michigan Tech Huskies forward Jake Lucchini joins Nick Halloran and Luke Santerno as Player of the Week honourees.
The Trail native was named the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) offensive Player of the Week, and tied with Halloran for an NCAA best five-point weekend in Tech’s series split at Bowling Green.
Lucchini scored the Huskies’ second goal in Friday’s loss and then factored in on all four goals in Saturday’s 4-0 shutout of the No. 14 Falcons.
The Huskies assistant captain buried the second and fourth goals for his team-leading 10th of the season and the first multi-goal game of his NCAA career. He also assisted on Gavin Gould’s game-winning tally in the first period and Mark Auk’s power-play goal in the second.
Lucchini leads Tech with 24 points on 10 goals and 14 assists. The Huskies are 12-3-0 when he records a point and 10-0-0 when he assists on a goal.
Lucchini captained the Smoke Eaters in 2014-15, leading the team with 35 goals and 83 points to finish fourth in league scoring and was a BCHL MVP candidate.
The Michigan Tech junior joins former Smokies Halloran and Santerno who received similar PoW honours this week for Colorado College and Bentley University respectively. Halloran had a five-point weekend and received offensive PoW from the NCHC and second consecutive Player of the Month honour, while Santerno scored a pair of goals and was named rookie of the week and rookie of the month, also for the second consecutive time, in Atlantic Hockey.