USHL

The United States Hockey League (USHL) announced Tuesday its Players of the Week for Week 20 of the 2021-22 season. For the second time this season, Madison Capitols blueliner Luke Mittelstadt earned Defenseman of the Week honors while the Dubuque Fighting Saints had multiple winners for the first time this season as Max Montes and Paxton Geisel earned Forward and Goaltender of the Week, respectively. 

Montes earned his first career Forward of the Week honor after a three-goal weekend helped the Fighting Saints to a sweep and propelled the team to within a point of the top of the Eastern Conference standings. The St. Cloud State University commit opened his weekend with a shorthanded tally, which served as the game-winning goal in Friday night’s 4-3 win over the Waterloo Black Hawks. The following night, Montes opened the game’s scoring with a first period powerplay goal before adding another powerplay tally, an insurance goal with minutes remaining in regulation of the 3-1 win over the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. Montes, a native of Waukesha, Wis., joins an impressive list of Dubuque forwards this year to earn Forward of the Week including two-time winner Stephen Halliday (Week 7 & Week 11) and other winners Ryan Beck (Week 12), Connor Kurth (Week 6) and Tristan Lemyre (Week 2). The second-year forward marks the sixth individual winner for the Fighting Saints this season and the 7th total Player of the Week winner of the campaign, which also includes Samuel Sjolund, who previously won Defenseman of the Week (Week 14). This season has seen Montes set new career highs for points (20), goals (10) and assists (10), passing his previous highs of 15, nine and six, respectively last season. The forward now has 35 points (19-16-35) in 81 games in his USHL career. 

Mittlestadt earned his second Defenseman of the Week honor (Week 5) last week after tallying a trio of points (2-1-3) in two games last weekend. The Eden Prairie, Minn. native’s points came in a 7-3 win over the Muskegon Lumberjacks Friday night as he tallied a game-tying goal on the powerplay in the first period, added an assist on a second period go-ahead goal and capped off his scoring with a second powerplay tally late in the third period to cap the game’s scoring. Mittlestadt is in his first full USHL season after collecting three points (2-1-3) with the Lincoln Stars in 12 games last season. The University of Minnesota commit has registered 38 points (15-23-38) in 41 appearances this season and participated in the 2022 BioSteel All-American Game last month. His 38 points ranks second among league defensemen and 15 goals is just three off of the lead for league blueliners. The defenseman is also tied for third among all league skaters with 10 powerplay goals on the season. Mittlestadt's three-point game (2-1-3) Friday was the third time this season he's recorded three-or-more points in a single game and the ninth multi-point game of his campaign. Mittlestadt is the younger brother of Casey, who played 26 USHL games with the Green Bay Gamblers (24 games) and United States National Team Development Program - NTDP (2 games) before being Drafted by the Buffalo Sabres (2017, Round 1, #8) where he’s currently a forward. Luke is also the younger brother of John who is currently a forward with the Green Bay Gamblers in his second season with the team. Mittelstadt represents the third total Defenseman of the Week honor for the Capitols this season with fellow winner Blake Dangos (Week 16). 

Geisel earned his first career Goaltender of the Week award this week after picking up a win in his lone appearance last week, a 3-1 Saturday night win over the RoughRiders. The University of Denver commit turned aside 25 of the 26 shots Cedar Rapids sent his way, making it four-straight games with two-or-less goals allowed with a 1.00 goals against average and 0.960 save percentage in that stretch. Geisel Has been great for Dubuque this season with a 16-6-0-2 record in 25 appearances this season with a 2.82 GAA and 0.907 SV%, which are both in the top eight of all USHL netminders this season. With his Weekly Award, the Estevan, Saskatchewan native pushes the Fighting Saints totals to seven individual winners and eight total winners this season but is the first Dubuque Goaltender of the Week. This week also marked the first time the Fighting Saints won multiple Player of the Week awards in a single week and Dubuque has now had a USHL Player of the Week in seven of the 20 weeks this season.