“I feel it’s kind of my role in playing the body, being physical,” Overbo said on Friday after his four-goal outburst led the Spuds to a 6-0 rout of Lakeville North in the second round of the Hockey for Life Classic tournament at Dakotah! Ice Center in Prior Lake. “Use my strength and size to get in front and put pucks away.”

One of several physical, grinding forwards on a gritty Moorhead (8-2-1, 1-1-0) team that wears out opposing teams as much as it outscores them, Overbo had four goals in 10 games entering Friday’s matchup.

“Mike plays a hard game, a fast game,” Spuds senior defenseman Luke Gramer said. “He’s got a great body he uses really well. Having a guy play as hard as he does makes it easier on us.”

Easy on his teammates, hard on the opposition. After a scoreless first period Overbo scored twice in each of the second and third periods. All four of his goals were the result of crashing the net and collecting loose pucks, although the fourth goal — which came in the final minute — was more of a long-distance snipe after a failed 2-on-1 rush.

This crash-heavy version of Moorhead is typical of northern hockey but far different from sharpshooting Spuds teams of recent vintage, most notably the one that reached the 2017 state title game. Snipe City is now Boomtown. 

“I thought Lakeville did a great job and was carrying the pace of play, but as the game went our style of play kind of wore on them,” Moorhead coach Jon Ammerman said about the Panthers (6-3-1, 2-1-1), who were coming off Thursday’s 7-1 rout of the Totino-Grace. “In the second and third periods, with the way we play, the style we play, it wears on teams.”

Moorhead defeated defending state Class 2A champion Edina 3-2 in overtime on Thursday in the opening round of the tournament. There was no hangover from the celebration after that victory because, well, there’s wasn’t much of a celebration after that victory.

“Not so much,” Ammerman said. “We have so many things that we are working on and concentrating on. We’re ready to kind of take that next step.”

For Moorhead to crack the top 10 in Class 2A, or reach the state tournament — or accomplish any other goal — the formula isn’t likely to change.

“There are some teams in the state that have more skill than us, we know that,” Gramer said. “But we try to rough ’em up a little bit. Gets the job done.”