ST. CLOUD — Yan Shostak has not been a member of the St. Cloud State men’s hockey team for that long. The 21-year-old freshman goalie from Minsk, Belarus, has endeared himself to his teammates and the coaching staff with how he goes about his business.
“The players love him,” SCSU head coach Brett Larson said. “He’s got a fun, dry sense of humor. He’s got that Eastern European accent and the personality of coming across serious. But he has a good sense of humor and he’s a guy you enjoy being around.
“He celebrates big saves in practices and loves the competitive parts of them. He makes practices fun by how he treats every drill like a game. He’s not afraid to make a big glove save in practice and show up the guy who shot it. He has a really fun, competitive nature.”
Shostak smiled when he was told what Larson said.
“It’s hockey, it’s fun,” he said. “It’s a game.”
Shostak is likely to get a start this weekend when
play host to Vermont (1-1) in a nonconference series at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 17, (The Twin Cities CW) or 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, (The Twin Cities CW, tape delay) at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.
On Friday, Oct. 10, Shostak picked up his first college win, stopping 25 of the 27 shots he faced
in a 3-2 win over Bemidji State.
“For me, I feel great,” Shostak said on Tuesday, Oct. 14. “I won my first game in NCAA. It was my second game in the season and I want more wins.”
It took some of the sting away from his first start on Oct. 4 when
he stopped 25 of 29 shots in a 4-3 loss to St. Thomas.
“It was my first game and I don’t want to say the team played bad, but we played not really great,” Shostak said. “I can stop more pucks. I know it.”
COURTESY OF ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS
Shostak is the first player from Belarus to play for the Huskies. He played the last two seasons for the Lincoln Stars in the USHL and was named the league’s Goaltender of the Year in 2024-25.
How did he end up coming to the United States in the first place?
“I played in Moscow and I wanted to try to go to North American hockey,” Shostak said. “My advisor said, ‘If you want to try go to development camp in the USHL.’ I went in the summer and the coaches said they wanted me to play for the season.”
In his first season with the Stars, he was 20-18-1 with a 3.05 goals-against average and .902 save percentage in 41 regular season games.
Last season, he was 29-12-1 with a 2.41 GAA, .911 save percentage and three shutouts. Lincoln was the No. 1 seed out of the Western Conference and got a bye in the first round of the playoffs. In the conference semifinals, Lincoln swept a series against Sioux City, 3-0. In the conference championship, Waterloo beat Lincoln 3-1.
ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS
“It was a great time and a great, great team,” Shostak said of playing in Lincoln. “Coaches really helped me. My billet family was so kind. Goalie coach, Artt Brey, is an amazing guy and a great help.”
His two seasons in Lincoln also gave him a chance to work on his English.
“My first day in the USHL, my English was terrible,” Shostak said. “I know, hello, how are you and that’s all. Now, I can speak and write English. I can talk, but how to start sentences … I need to think first think of what I need to say.”
Early on in his first season at Lincoln, he committed to St. Cloud State. Larson’s assistant coaches, Dave Shyiak and R.J. Enga, were the first to see Shostak and recommend him.
“I remember they came back and said, ‘This is a goalie we’ve got to have,'” Larson said of Shostak, who is listed at 6-foot and 185 pounds.
Shostak said that the Huskies were one of the first teams to recruit him and it was a pretty easy sell.
“I visited St. Cloud. (They said), ‘If you wanna (come here), we’ll sign you.’ I say, ‘OK, no problem. I’ll sign,'” he said. “For me, the best way for a good hockey program and good school, it was the best way.”
COURTESY OF ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS
Larson said that there are several attributes that make Shostak a strong goalie.
“I think his athleticism, combined with his quickness and his compete,” Larsons said. “He can make saves that, a lot of times you just assume are going into the net, and makes the save. The thing I like the most is, even in practice, he never gives up on any puck. Every shooting drill, he’s really facing that shot like it’s the most important shot in the game. I just think that mentality of such a high compete level is what really drives him to be good.”
“I try being an aggressive goalie,” Shostak said. “Every day, I (try to get) better on the ice.”
Larson said that Shostak is starting to show what he is capable of.
“He’s the quintessential gamer,” Larson said. “He’s a guy who has a winning mentality. He loves winning and he competes. To me, that’s the type of goalie that you want in a big game.”
While Shostak is off to a strong start, he is also competing for the starting role.
Sophomore Patriks Berzins, who transferred to SCSU from Maine this fall,
started the second game against Bemidji State and
stopped 32 of 34 shots in a 4-2 win over Bemidji State on Oct. 11.
Redshirt senior James Gray is also competing for playing time.
“It’s a daily competition with three really good goalies,” Larson said. “That’s a good problem to have.”
Home and home with Vermont
This will be the first time that SCSU has played Vermont since Dec. 30, 2006, when the Huskies beat Vermont 4-2 in the Vermont Catamount Cup title game. This will be Vermont’s first time back at the Brooks Center since splitting a series with the Huskies on Oct. 30-31, 1998.
“We needed some games for this year and we sent out emails to every (nonconference) team and, thankfully, they responded,” Larson said. “We were really excited to get them on the schedule. Historically, they’ve been a really good program. We thought it was a really good opponent to bring into St. Cloud. Next year, our men’s and women’s team both play there the same weekend.”
The Catamounts are 1-1 after splitting a home-and-home series against St. Lawrence on Oct. 10-12.
“Watching them on video, they split with St. Lawrence and they look like they play with a lot of pace and puck pressure,” Larson said. “They play on a hybrid-sized sheet and they’re used to playing on a larger sheet because their rink is 200 (feet) by 90.”